CHAPTER I

ROLLING STONES

by

O. HENRY

Author of "The Four Million," "The Voice of the City," "The Trimmed

Lamp," "Strictly Business," "Sixes and Sevens," etc.

1919

[Illustration: The last photograph of O. Henry, taken by

W. M. Vanderwayde (New York) in 1909]

O. Henry, Afrite-Chef of all delight--

Of all delectables conglomerate

That stay the starved brain and rejuvenate

The Mental Man! The Êsthetic appetite--

So long enhungered that the "inards" fight

And growl gutwise--its pangs thou dost abate

And all so amiably alleviate,

Joy pats his belly as a hobo might

Who haply hath obtained a cherry pie

With no burnt crust at all, ner any seeds;

Nothin' but crisp crust, and the thickness fit.

And squashin'-juicy, an' jes' mighty nigh

Too dratted, drippin'-sweet for human needs,

But fer the sosh of milk that goes with it.

Written in the character of "Sherrard

Plummer" by James Whitcomb Riley

CONTENTS

Introduction

The Dream

A Ruler of Men

The Atavism of John Tom Little Bear

Helping the Other Fellow

The Marionettes

The Marquis and Miss Sally

A Fog in Santone

The Friendly Call

A Dinner at ----*

Sound and Fury

Tictocq

Tracked to Doom

A Snapshot at the President

An Unfinished Christmas Story

The Unprofitable Servant

Aristocracy Versus Hash

The Prisoner of Zembla

A Strange Story

Fickle Fortune, or How Gladys Hustled

An Apology

Lord Oakhurst's Curse

Bexar Scrip No. 2692

Queries and Answers

Poems

The Pewee

Nothing to Say

The Murderer

Some Postscripts

Two Portraits

A Contribution

The Old Farm

Vanity

The Lullaby Boy

Chanson de Bohême

Hard to Forget

Drop a Tear in This Slot

Tamales

Letters

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Last Photograph of O. Henry (Frontispiece)

The Editor's Own Statement of His Aims

(Advertisement for _The Rolling Stone_)

Record of Births and Deaths from the Porter Family Bible

O. Henry at the Age of Two

The "Hill City Quartet," to Which O. Henry Belonged

As a Young Man in Austin

O. Henry in Austin, Texas, 1896

Emigrants' Camp (an Early Drawing by O. Henry)

"Can the Horse Run?" (Cartoon from _The Rolling Stone_)

"Will You Go In?" (Cartoon from _The Rolling Stone_)

"Here We Have Kate and John." (Cartoon from _The Rolling Stone_)

"Did He Go Up?" (Cartoon from _The Rolling Stone_)

"See Tom and the Dog." (Cartoon from _The Rolling Stone_)

"See Him Do It." (Cartoon from _The Rolling Stone_)

Letters That the Boy Will Porter Brought Along from

North Carolina to Texas

Letter: "A Young Man of Good Moral Character and

an A No. 1 Druggist."

"The Plunkville Patriot," April 2, 1895

_The Rolling Stone_, January 26, 1895

A Page from "The Plunkville Patriot"

A Front Page of _The Rolling Stone_

A Page from "The Plunkville Patriot"

"Dear Me, General, Who Is That Dreadful Man?" (Cartoon)

"Well, I Declare, Those Gentlemen Must Be Brothers." (Cartoon)

"Oh Papa, What Is That?"

(Cartoon from _The Rolling Stone_, April 27, 1895)

Cartoon by O. Henry

Cartoon by O. Henry

Can He Make the Jump?

(Cartoon from _The Rolling Stone_, October 13, 1894

Page from "The Plunkville Patriot"

A Letter to His Daughter Margaret.

+------------------------------------------------+

| |

| THE |

| ROLLING STONE |

| is a weekly paper published in Austin, Texas |

| every Saturday and will endeavor to fill a |

| long-felt want that does not appear, |

| by the way, to be altogether in- |

| satiable at present. |

| |

| THE IDEA IS |

| to fill its pages with matter that will make a |

| heart-rending appeal to every lover of |

| good literature, and every person who |

| has a taste for reading print; |

| and a dollar and a half for |

| a year's subscription. |

| |

| OUR SPECIAL PREMIUM |

| For the next thirty days and from that time |

| on indefinitely, whoever will bring two dol- |

| lars in cash to _The Rolling Stone_ office |

| will be entered on the list of sub- |

| scribers for one year and will |

| have returned to him |

| on the spot |

| FIFTY CENTS IN CASH |

| |

+------------------------------------------------+

The editor's own statement of his aims

INTRODUCTION

This the twelfth and final volume of O. Henry's work gets its title from

an early newspaper venture of which he was the head and front. On April

28, 1894, there appeared in Austin, Texas, volume 1, number 3, of The

Rolling Stone, with a circulation greatly in excess of that of the only

two numbers that had gone before. Apparently the business office was

encouraged. The first two issues of one thousand copies each had been

bought up. Of the third an edition of six thousand was published and

distributed FREE, so that the business men of Austin, Texas, might know

what a good medium was at hand for their advertising. The editor and

proprietor and illustrator of _The Rolling Stone_ was Will Porter,

incidentally Paying and Receiving Teller in Major Brackenridge's bank.

Perhaps the most characteristic feature of the paper was "The Plunkville

Patriot," a page each week--or at least with the regularity of the

somewhat uncertain paper itself--purporting to be reprinted from a

contemporary journal. The editor of the Plunkville _Patriot_ was Colonel

Aristotle Jordan, unrelenting enemy of his enemies. When the Colonel's

application for the postmastership in Plunkville is ignored, his columns

carry a bitter attack on the administration at Washington. With the

public weal at heart, the _Patriot_ announces that "there is a dangerous

hole in the front steps of the Elite saloon." Here, too, appears the

delightful literary item that Mark Twain and Charles Egbert Craddock are

spending the summer together in their Adirondacks camp. "Free," runs its

advertising column, "a clergyman who cured himself of fits will send

one book containing 100 popular songs, one repeating rifle, two decks

easywinner cards and 1 liver pad free of charge for $8. Address Sucker

& Chump, Augusta, Me." The office moves nearly every week, probably in

accordance with the time-honored principle involving the comparative

ease of moving and paying rent. When the Colonel publishes his own

candidacy for mayor, he further declares that the _Patriot_ will accept

no announcements for municipal offices until after "our" (the editor's)

canvass. Adams & Co., grocers, order their $2.25 ad. discontinued and

find later in the _Patriot_ this estimate of their product: "No less

than three children have been poisoned by eating their canned vegetables,

and J. O. Adams, the senior member of the firm, was run out of Kansas

City for adulterating codfish balls. It pays to advertise." Here is the

editorial in which the editor first announces his campaign: "Our worthy

mayor, Colonel Henry Stutty, died this morning after an illness of about

five minutes, brought on by carrying a bouquet to Mrs. Eli Watts just

as Eli got in from a fishing trip. Ten minutes later we had dodgers out

announcing our candidacy for the office. We have lived in Plunkville

going on five years and have never been elected anything yet. We

understand the mayor business thoroughly and if elected some people will

wish wolves had stolen them from their cradles . . ."

The page from the _Patriot_ is presented with an array of perfectly

confused type, of artistic errors in setting up, and when an occasional

line gets shifted (intentionally, of course) the effect is alarming.

Anybody who knows the advertising of a small country weekly can, as

he reads, pick out, in the following, the advertisement from the

"personal."

Miss Hattie Green of Paris, Ill., is

Steel-riveted seam or water power

automatic oiling thoroughly tested

visiting her sister Mrs. G. W. Grubes

Little Giant Engines at Adams & Co.

Also Sachet powders Mc. Cormick Reapers and

oysters.

All of this was a part of _The Rolling Stone_, which flourished, or at

least wavered, in Austin during the years 1894 and 1895. Years before,

Porter's strong instinct to write had been gratified in letters. He

wrote, in his twenties, long imaginative letters, occasionally stuffed

with execrable puns, but more than often buoyant, truly humorous, keenly

incisive into the unreal, especially in fiction. I have included a

number of these letters to Doctor Beall of Greensboro, N. C., and to his

early friend in Texas, Mr. David Harrell.

In 1895-1896 Porter went to Houston, Texas, to work on the Houston

_Post_. There he "conducted" a column which he called "Postscripts."

Some of the contents of the pages that follow have been taken from

these old files in the fair hope that admirers of the matured O. Henry

will find in them pleasurable marks of the later genius.

Before the days of _The Rolling Stone_ there are eleven years in Texas

over which, with the exception of the letters mentioned, there are few

"traces" of literary performance; but there are some very interesting

drawings, some of which are reproduced in this volume. A story is back

of them. They were the illustrations to a book. "Joe" Dixon, prospector

and inveterate fortune-seeker, came to Austin from the Rockies in 1883,

at the constant urging of his old pal, Mr. John Maddox, "Joe," kept

writing Mr. Maddox, "your fortune's in your pen, not your pick. Come

to Austin and write an account of your adventures." It was hard to woo

Dixon from the gold that wasn't there, but finally Maddox wrote him he

must come and try the scheme. "There's a boy here from North Carolina,"

wrote Maddox. "His name is Will Porter and he can make the pictures.

He's all right." Dixon came. The plan was that, after Author and Artist

had done their work, Patron would step in, carry the manuscript to New

York, bestow it on a deserving publisher and then return to await, with

the other two, the avalanche of royalties. This version of the story

comes from Mr. Maddox. There were forty pictures in all and they were

very true to the life of the Rockies in the seventies. Of course, the

young artist had no "technique"--no anything except what was native.

But wait! As the months went by Dixon worked hard, but he began to have

doubts. Perhaps the book was no good. Perhaps John would only lose his

money. He was a miner, not a writer, and he ought not to let John go to

any expense. The result of this line of thought was the Colorado River

for the manuscript and the high road for the author. The pictures,

fortunately, were saved. Most of them Porter gave later to Mrs.

Hagelstein of San Angelo, Texas. Mr. Maddox, by the way, finding a note

from Joe that "explained all," hastened to the river and recovered a few

scraps of the great book that had lodged against a sandbar. But there

was no putting them together again.

So much for the title. It is a real O. Henry title. Contents of this

last volume are drawn not only from letters, old newspaper files, and

_The Rolling Stone_, but from magazines and unpublished manuscripts.

Of the short stories, several were written at the very height of his

powers and popularity and were lost, inexplicably, but lost. Of the

poems, there are a few whose authorship might have been in doubt if the

compiler of this collection had not secured external evidence that made

them certainly the work of O. Henry. Without this very strong evidence,

they might have been rejected because they were not entirely the kind

of poems the readers of O. Henry would expect from him. Most of them

however, were found in his own indubitable manuscript or over his own

signature.

There is extant a mass of O. Henry correspondence that has not been

included in this collection. During the better part of a decade in

New York City he wrote constantly to editors, and in many instances

intimately. This is very important material, and permission has been

secured to use nearly all of it in a biographical volume that will be

issued within the next two or three years. The letters in this volume

have been chosen as an "exihibit," as early specimens of his writing and

for their particularly characteristic turns of thought and phrase. The

collection is not "complete" in any historical sense.

1912.

H.P.S.

This record of births and deaths is copied from the Porter Family Bible,

just lately discovered.

BIRTHS

ALGERNON SIDNEY PORTER

Son of

SIDNEY AND RUTH C. PORTER

Was born

August 22, 1825

MONDAY EVENING, May 29, 1858

Still-born Son of

A. S. AND M. V. PORTER

MONDAY, August 6, 1860, 9 o'clock P.M.

SHIRLEY WORTH

Son of A. S. AND M. V. PORTER

THURSDAY, September 11, 1862, 9 o'clock P.M.

WILLIAM SIDNEY [1]

Son of

A. S. AND M. V. PORTER

SUNDAY, March 26, 1865, at 8 o'clock A. M.

DAVID WEIR

Son of

A. S. AND M. V. PORTER

MARY JANE VIRGINIA SWAIM [2]

Daughter of

WILLIAM AND ABIAH SWAIM

Was born

February 12, 1833

DEATHS

MARY VIRGINIA PORTER

TUESDAY EVENING, September 26, 1865

At 7:30 o'clock

ATHOL ESTES PORTER

SUNDAY EVENING, July 25,1897

At 6 o'clock

ALGERNON SIDNEY PORTER

SUNDAY MORNING, September 30, 1888

At 20 minutes of 2 o'clock

[Footnote 1: O. Henry]

[Footnote 2: Mother of O. Henry]

[Illustration: O. Henry at the age of two]

THE DREAM

[This was the last work of O. Henry. The _Cosmopolitan

Magazine_ had ordered it from him and, after his death, the

unfinished manuscript was found in his room, on his dusty

desk. The story as it here appears was published in the

_Cosmopolitan_ for September, 1910.]

Murray dreamed a dream.

Both psychology and science grope when they would explain to us the

strange adventures of our immaterial selves when wandering in the realm

of "Death's twin brother, Sleep." This story will not attempt to be

illuminative; it is no more than a record of Murray's dream. One of the

most puzzling phases of that strange waking sleep is that dreams which

seem to cover months or even years may take place within a few seconds

or minutes.

Murray was waiting in his cell in the ward of the condemned. An electric

arc light in the ceiling of the corridor shone brightly upon his table.

On a sheet of white paper an ant crawled wildly here and there as Murray

blocked its way with an envelope. The electrocution was set for eight

o'clock in the evening. Murray smiled at the antics of the wisest of

insects.

There were seven other condemned men in the chamber. Since he had been

there Murray had seen three taken out to their fate; one gone mad and

fighting like a wolf caught in a trap; one, no less mad, offering up a

sanctimonious lip-service to Heaven; the third, a weakling, collapsed

and strapped to a board. He wondered with what credit to himself his

own heart, foot, and face would meet his punishment; for this was his

evening. He thought it must be nearly eight o'clock.

Opposite his own in the two rows of cells was the cage of Bonifacio, the

Sicilian slayer of his betrothed and of two officers who came to arrest

him. With him Murray had played checkers many a long hour, each calling

his move to his unseen opponent across the corridor.

Bonifacio's great booming voice with its indestructible singing quality

called out:

"Eh, Meestro Murray; how you feel--all-a right--yes?"

"All right, Bonifacio," said Murray steadily, as he allowed the ant to

crawl upon the envelope and then dumped it gently on the stone floor.

"Dat's good-a, Meestro Murray. Men like us, we must-a die like-a men. My

time come nex'-a week. All-a right. Remember, Meestro Murray, I beat-a

you dat las' game of de check. Maybe we play again some-a time. I don'-a

know. Maybe we have to call-a de move damn-a loud to play de check where

dey goin' send us."

Bonifacio's hardened philosophy, followed closely by his deafening,

musical peal of laughter, warmed rather than chilled Murray's numbed

heart. Yet, Bonifacio had until next week to live.

The cell-dwellers heard the familiar, loud click of the steel bolts

as the door at the end of the corridor was opened. Three men came to

Murray's cell and unlocked it. Two were prison guards; the other was

"Len"--no; that was in the old days; now the Reverend Leonard Winston,

a friend and neighbor from their barefoot days.

"I got them to let me take the prison chaplain's place," he said, as he

gave Murray's hand one short, strong grip. In his left hand he held a

small Bible, with his forefinger marking a page.

Murray smiled slightly and arranged two or three books and some

penholders orderly on his small table. He would have spoken, but no

appropriate words seemed to present themselves to his mind.

The prisoners had christened this cellhouse, eighty feet long,

twenty-eight feet wide, Limbo Lane. The regular guard of Limbo Lane,

an immense, rough, kindly man, drew a pint bottle of whiskey from his

pocket and offered it to Murray, saying:

"It's the regular thing, you know. All has it who feel like they need a

bracer. No danger of it becoming a habit with 'em, you see."

Murray drank deep into the bottle.

"That's the boy!" said the guard. "Just a little nerve tonic, and

everything goes smooth as silk."

They stepped into the corridor, and each one of the doomed seven knew.

Limbo Lane is a world on the outside of the world; but it had learned,

when deprived of one or more of the five senses, to make another sense

supply the deficiency. Each one knew that it was nearly eight, and that

Murray was to go to the chair at eight. There is also in the many Limbo

Lanes an aristocracy of crime. The man who kills in the open, who beats

his enemy or pursuer down, flushed by the primitive emotions and the

ardor of combat, holds in contempt the human rat, the spider, and the

snake.

So, of the seven condemned only three called their farewells to Murray

as he marched down the corridor between the two guards--Bonifacio,

Marvin, who had killed a guard while trying to escape from the prison,

and Bassett, the train-robber, who was driven to it because the

express-messenger wouldn't raise his hands when ordered to do so. The

remaining four smoldered, silent, in their cells, no doubt feeling their

social ostracism in Limbo Lane society more keenly than they did the

memory of their less picturesque offences against the law.

Murray wondered at his own calmness and nearly indifference. In the

execution room were about twenty men, a congregation made up of prison

officers, newspaper reporters, and lookers-on who had succeeded

* * * * * *

Here, in the very middle of a sentence, the hand of Death interrupted

the telling of O. Henry's last story. He had planned to make this story

different from his others, the beginning of a new series in a style he

had not previously attempted. "I want to show the public," he said,

"that I can write something new--new for me, I mean--a story without

slang, a straightforward dramatic plot treated in a way that will

come nearer my idea of real story-writing." Before starting to write

the present story, he outlined briefly how he intended to develop it:

Murray, the criminal accused and convicted of the brutal murder of his

sweetheart--a murder prompted by jealous rage--at first faces the death

penalty, calm, and, to all outward appearances, indifferent to his

fate. As he nears the electric chair he is overcome by a revulsion of

feeling. He is left dazed, stupefied, stunned. The entire scene in the

death-chamber--the witnesses, the spectators, the preparations for

execution--become unreal to him. The thought flashes through his brain

that a terrible mistake is being made. Why is he being strapped to the

chair? What has he done? What crime has he committed? In the few moments

while the straps are being adjusted a vision comes to him. He dreams a

dream. He sees a little country cottage, bright, sun-lit, nestling in

a bower of flowers. A woman is there, and a little child. He speaks

with them and finds that they are his wife, his child--and the cottage

their home. So, after all, it is a mistake. Some one has frightfully,

irretrievably blundered. The accusation, the trial, the conviction, the

sentence to death in the electric chair--all a dream. He takes his wife

in his arms and kisses the child. Yes, here is happiness. It was a

dream. Then--at a sign from the prison warden the fatal current is

turned on.

Murray had dreamed the wrong dream.

[Illustration: The "Hill City Quartet," to which O. Henry

belonged as a young man in Austin]

A RULER OF MEN

[Written at the prime of his popularity and power,

this characteristic and amusing story was published

in _Everybody's Magazine_ in August, 1906.]

I walked the streets of the City of Insolence, thirsting for the sight

of a stranger face. For the City is a desert of familiar types as thick

and alike as the grains in a sand-storm; and you grow to hate them as

you do a friend who is always by you, or one of your own kin.

And my desire was granted, for I saw near a corner of Broadway and

Twenty-ninth Street, a little flaxen-haired man with a face like a

scaly-bark hickory-nut, selling to a fast-gathering crowd a tool

that omnigeneously proclaimed itself a can-opener, a screw-driver, a

button-hook, a nail-file, a shoe-horn, a watch-guard, a potato-peeler,

and an ornament to any gentleman's key-ring.

And then a stall-fed cop shoved himself through the congregation of

customers. The vender, plainly used to having his seasons of trade thus

abruptly curtailed, closed his satchel and slipped like a weasel through

the opposite segment of the circle. The crowd scurried aimlessly away

like ants from a disturbed crumb. The cop, suddenly becoming oblivious

of the earth and its inhabitants, stood still, swelling his bulk and

putting his club through an intricate drill of twirls. I hurried after

Kansas Bill Bowers, and caught him by an arm.

Without his looking at me or slowing his pace, I found a five-dollar

bill crumpled neatly into my hand.

"I wouldn't have thought, Kansas Bill," I said, "that you'd hold an old

friend that cheap."

Then he turned his head, and the hickory-nut cracked into a wide smile.

"Give back the money," said he, "or I'll have the cop after you for

false pretenses. I thought you was the cop."

"I want to talk to you, Bill," I said. "When did you leave Oklahoma?

Where is Reddy McGill now? Why are you selling those impossible

contraptions on the street? How did your Big Horn gold-mine pan out? How

did you get so badly sunburned? What will you drink?"

"A year ago," answered Kansas Bill systematically. "Putting up windmills

in Arizona. For pin money to buy etceteras with. Salted. Been down in

the tropics. Beer."

We foregathered in a propitious place and became Elijahs, while a waiter

of dark plumage played the raven to perfection. Reminiscence needs must

be had before I could steer Bill into his epic mood.

"Yes," said he, "I mind the time Timoteo's rope broke on that cow's

horns while the calf was chasing you. You and that cow! I'd never forget

it."

"The tropics," said I, "are a broad territory. What part of Cancer of

Capricorn have you been honoring with a visit?"

"Down along China or Peru--or maybe the Argentine Confederacy," said

Kansas Bill. "Anyway 'twas among a great race of people, off-colored but

progressive. I was there three months."

"No doubt you are glad to be back among the truly great race," I

surmised. "Especially among New Yorkers, the most progressive and

independent citizens of any country in the world," I continued, with the

fatuity of the provincial who has eaten the Broadway lotus.

"Do you want to start an argument?" asked Bill.

"Can there be one?" I answered.

"Has an Irishman humor, do you think?" asked he.

"I have an hour or two to spare," said I, looking at the café clock.

"Not that the Americans aren't a great commercial nation," conceded

Bill. "But the fault laid with the people who wrote lies for fiction."

"What was this Irishman's name?" I asked.

"Was that last beer cold enough?" said he.

"I see there is talk of further outbreaks among the Russian peasants," I

remarked.

"His name was Barney O'Connor," said Bill.

Thus, because of our ancient prescience of each other's trail of

thought, we travelled ambiguously to the point where Kansas Bill's story

began:

"I met O'Connor in a boarding-house on the West Side. He invited me to

his hall-room to have a drink, and we became like a dog and a cat that

had been raised together. There he sat, a tall, fine, handsome man, with

his feet against one wall and his back against the other, looking over a

map. On the bed and sticking three feet out of it was a beautiful gold

sword with tassels on it and rhinestones in the handle.

"'What's this?' says I (for by that time we were well acquainted). 'The

annual parade in vilification of the ex-snakes of Ireland? And what's

the line of march? Up Broadway to Forty-second; thence east to McCarty's

café; thence--'

"'Sit down on the wash-stand,' says O'Connor, 'and listen. And cast no

perversions on the sword. 'Twas me father's in old Munster. And this

map, Bowers, is no diagram of a holiday procession. If ye look again.

ye'll see that it's the continent known as South America, comprising

fourteen green, blue, red, and yellow countries, all crying out from

time to time to be liberated from the yoke of the oppressor.'

"'I know,' says I to O'Connor. 'The idea is a literary one. The

ten-cent magazine stole it from "Ridpath's History of the World from the

Sand-stone Period to the Equator." You'll find it in every one of 'em.

It's a continued story of a soldier of fortune, generally named O'Keefe,

who gets to be dictator while the Spanish-American populace cries

"Cospetto!" and other Italian maledictions. I misdoubt if it's ever been

done. You're not thinking of trying that, are you, Barney?' I asks.

"'Bowers,' says he, 'you're a man of education and courage.'

"'How can I deny it?' says I. 'Education runs in my family; and I have

acquired courage by a hard struggle with life.'

"'The O'Connors,' says he, 'are a warlike race. There is me father's

sword; and here is the map. A life of inaction is not for me. The

O'Connors were born to rule. 'Tis a ruler of men I must be.'

"'Barney,' I says to him, 'why don't you get on the force and settle

down to a quiet life of carnage and corruption instead of roaming off to

foreign parts? In what better way can you indulge your desire to subdue

and maltreat the oppressed?'

"'Look again at the map,' says he, 'at the country I have the point of

me knife on. 'Tis that one I have selected to aid and overthrow with me

father's sword.'

"'I see,' says I. 'It's the green one; and that does credit to your

patriotism, and it's the smallest one; and that does credit to your

judgment.'

"'Do ye accuse me of cowardice?' says Barney, turning pink.

"'No man,' says I, 'who attacks and confiscates a country single-handed

could be called a coward. The worst you can be charged with is

plagiarism or imitation. If Anthony Hope and Roosevelt let you get away

with it, nobody else will have any right to kick.'

"'I'm not joking,' says O'Connor. 'And I've got $1,500 cash to work the

scheme with. I've taken a liking to you. Do you want it, or not?'

"'I'm not working,' I told him; 'but how is it to be? Do I eat during

the fomentation of the insurrection, or am I only to be Secretary of War

after the country is conquered? Is it to be a pay envelope or only a

portfolio?'

"I'll pay all expenses,' says O'Connor. 'I want a man I can trust. If

we succeed you may pick out any appointment you want in the gift of the

government.'

"'All right, then,' says I. 'You can get me a bunch of draying contracts

and then a quick-action consignment to a seat on the Supreme Court

bench so I won't be in line for the presidency. The kind of cannon they

chasten their presidents with in that country hurt too much. You can

consider me on the pay-roll.'

"Two weeks afterward O'Connor and me took a steamer for the small,

green, doomed country. We were three weeks on the trip. O'Connor said

he had his plans all figured out in advance; but being the commanding

general, it consorted with his dignity to keep the details concealed

from his army and cabinet, commonly known as William T. Bowers. Three

dollars a day was the price for which I joined the cause of liberating

an undiscovered country from the ills that threatened or sustained it.

Every Saturday night on the steamer I stood in line at parade rest, and

O'Connor handed ever the twenty-one dollars.

"The town we landed at was named Guayaquerita, so they told me. 'Not for

me,' says I. 'It'll be little old Hilldale or Tompkinsville or Cherry

Tree Corners when I speak of it. It's a clear case where Spelling Reform

ought to butt in and disenvowel it.'

"But the town looked fine from the bay when we sailed in. It was white,

with green ruching, and lace ruffles on the skirt when the surf slashed

up on the sand. It looked as tropical and dolce far ultra as the

pictures of Lake Ronkonkoma in the brochure of the passenger department

of the Long Island Railroad.

"We went through the quarantine and custom-house indignities; and then

O'Connor leads me to a 'dobe house on a street called 'The Avenue of the

Dolorous Butterflies of the Individual and Collective Saints.' Ten feet

wide it was, and knee-deep in alfalfa and cigar stumps.

"'Hooligan Alley,' says I, rechristening it.

"''Twill be our headquarters,' says O'Connor. 'My agent here, Don

Fernando Pacheco, secured it for us.'

"So in that house O'Connor and me established the revolutionary centre.

In the front room we had ostensible things such as fruit, a guitar, and

a table with a conch shell on it. In the back room O'Connor had his desk

and a large looking-glass and his sword hid in a roll of straw matting.

We slept on hammocks that we hung to hooks in the wall; and took our

meals at the Hotel Ingles, a beanery run on the American plan by a

German proprietor with Chinese cooking served à la Kansas City lunch

counter.

"It seems that O'Connor really did have some sort of system planned out

beforehand. He wrote plenty of letters; and every day or two some native

gent would stroll round to headquarters and be shut up in the back room

for half an hour with O'Connor and the interpreter. I noticed that when

they went in they were always smoking eight-inch cigars and at peace

with the world; but when they came out they would be folding up a

ten- or twenty-dollar bill and cursing the government horribly.

"One evening after we had been in Guaya--in this town of

Smellville-by-the-Sea--about a month, and me and O'Connor were sitting

outside the door helping along old tempus fugit with rum and ice and

limes, I says to him:

"'If you'll excuse a patriot that don't exactly know what he's

patronizing, for the question--what is your scheme for subjugating this

country? Do you intend to plunge it into bloodshed, or do you mean to

buy its votes peacefully and honorably at the polls?'

"'Bowers,' says he, 'ye're a fine little man and I intend to make great

use of ye after the conflict. But ye do not understand statecraft.

Already by now we have a network of strategy clutching with invisible

fingers at the throat of the tyrant Calderas. We have agents at work in

every town in the republic. The Liberal party is bound to win. On our

secret lists we have the names of enough sympathizers to crush the

administration forces at a single blow.'

"'A straw vote,' says I, 'only shows which way the hot air blows.'

"'Who has accomplished this?' goes on O'Connor. 'I have. I have directed

everything. The time was ripe when we came, so my agents inform me.

The people are groaning under burdens of taxes and levies. Who will be

their natural leader when they rise? Could it be any one but meself?

'Twas only yesterday that Zaldas, our representative in the province

of Durasnas, tells me that the people, in secret, already call me "El

Library Door," which is the Spanish manner of saying "The Liberator."'

"'Was Zaldas that maroon-colored old Aztec with a paper collar on and

unbleached domestic shoes?' I asked.

"'He was,' says O'Connor.

"'I saw him tucking a yellow-back into his vest pocket as he came out,'

says I. 'It may be,' says I, 'that they call you a library door, but

they treat you more like the side door of a bank. But let us hope for

the worst.'

"'It has cost money, of course,' says O'Connor; 'but we'll have the

country in our hands inside of a month.'

"In the evenings we walked about in the plaza and listened to the band

playing and mingled with the populace at its distressing and obnoxious

pleasures. There were thirteen vehicles belonging to the upper classes,

mostly rockaways and old-style barouches, such as the mayor rides in at

the unveiling of the new poorhouse at Milledgeville, Alabama. Round and

round the desiccated fountain in the middle of the plaza they drove,

and lifted their high silk hats to their friends. The common people

walked around in barefooted bunches, puffing stogies that a Pittsburg

millionaire wouldn't have chewed for a dry smoke on Ladies' Day at his

club. And the grandest figure in the whole turnout was Barney O'Connor.

Six foot two he stood in his Fifth Avenue clothes, with his eagle eye

and his black moustache that tickled his ears. He was a born dictator

and czar and hero and harrier of the human race. It looked to me that

all eyes were turned upon O'Connor, and that every woman there loved

him, and every man feared him. Once or twice I looked at him and thought

of funnier things that had happened than his winning out in his game;

and I began to feel like a Hidalgo de Officio de Grafto de South America

myself. And then I would come down again to solid bottom and let my

imagination gloat, as usual, upon the twenty-one American dollars due me

on Saturday night.

"'Take note,' says O'Connor to me as thus we walked, 'of the mass of the

people. Observe their oppressed and melancholy air. Can ye not see that

they are ripe for revolt? Do ye not perceive that they are disaffected?'

"'I do not,' says I. 'Nor disinfected either. I'm beginning to

understand these people. When they look unhappy they're enjoying

themselves. When they feel unhappy they go to sleep. They're not the

kind of people to take an interest in revolutions.'

"'They'll flock to our standard,' says O'Connor. 'Three thousand men

in this town alone will spring to arms when the signal is given. I am

assured of that. But everything is in secret. There is no chance for us

to fail.'

"On Hooligan Alley, as I prefer to call the street our headquarters was

on, there was a row of flat 'dobe houses with red tile roofs, some straw

shacks full of Indians and dogs, and one two-story wooden house with

balconies a little farther down. That was where General Tumbalo, the

comandante and commander of the military forces, lived. Right across the

street was a private residence built like a combination bake-oven and

folding-bed. One day, O'Connor and me were passing it, single file, on

the flange they called a sidewalk, when out of the window flies a big

red rose. O'Connor, who is ahead, picks it up, presses it to his fifth

rib, and bows to the ground. By Carrambos! that man certainly had the

Irish drama chaunceyized. I looked around expecting to see the little

boy and girl in white sateen ready to jump on his shoulder while he

jolted their spinal columns and ribs together through a breakdown, and

sang: 'Sleep, Little One, Sleep.'

"As I passed the window I glanced inside and caught a glimpse of a white

dress and a pair of big, flashing black eyes and gleaming teeth under a

dark lace mantilla.

"When we got back to our house O'Connor began to walk up and down the

floor and twist his moustaches.

"'Did ye see her eyes, Bowers?' he asks me.

"'I did,' says I, 'and I can see more than that. It's all coming out

according to the story-books. I knew there was something missing. 'Twas

the love interest. What is it that comes in Chapter VII to cheer the

gallant Irish adventurer? Why, Love, of course--Love that makes the

hat go around. At last we have the eyes of midnight hue and the rose

flung from the barred window. Now, what comes next? The underground

passage--the intercepted letter--the traitor in camp--the hero thrown

into a dungeon--the mysterious message from the señorita--then the

outburst--the fighting on the plaza--the--'

"'Don't be a fool,' says O'Connor, interrupting. 'But that's the only

woman in the world for me, Bowers. The O'Connors are as quick to love as

they are to fight. I shall wear that rose over me heart when I lead me

men into action. For a good battle to be fought there must be some woman

to give it power.'

"'Every time,' I agreed, 'if you want to have a good lively scrap.

There's only one thing bothering me. In the novels the light-haired

friend of the hero always gets killed. Think 'em all over that you've

read, and you'll see that I'm right. I think I'll step down to the

Botica Española and lay in a bottle of walnut stain before war is

declared.'

"'How will I find out her name?' says O'Connor, layin' his chin in his

hand.

"'Why don't you go across the street and ask her?' says I.

"'Will ye never regard anything in life seriously?' says O'Connor,

looking down at me like a schoolmaster.

"'Maybe she meant the rose for me,' I said, whistling the Spanish

Fandango.

"For the first time since I'd known O'Connor, he laughed. He got up and

roared and clapped his knees, and leaned against the wall till the tiles

on the roof clattered to the noise of his lungs. He went into the back

room and looked at himself in the glass and began and laughed all over

from the beginning again. Then he looked at me and repeated himself.

That's why I asked you if you thought an Irishman had any humor. He'd

been doing farce comedy from the day I saw him without knowing it; and

the first time he had an idea advanced to him with any intelligence

in it he acted like two twelfths of the sextet in a 'Floradora' road

company.

"The next afternoon he comes in with a triumphant smile and begins to

pull something like ticker tape out of his pocket.

"'Great!' says I. 'This is something like home. How is Amalgamated

Copper to-day?'

"'I've got her name,' says O'Connor, and he reads off something like

this: 'Dona Isabel Antonia Inez Lolita Carreras y Buencaminos y

Monteleon. She lives with her mother,' explains O'Connor. 'Her father

was killed in the last revolution. She is sure to be in sympathy with

our cause.'

"And sure enough the next day she flung a little bunch of roses clear

across the street into our door. O'Connor dived for it and found a piece

of paper curled around a stem with a line in Spanish on it. He dragged

the interpreter out of his corner and got him busy. The interpreter

scratched his head, and gave us as a translation three best bets:

'Fortune had got a face like the man fighting'; 'Fortune looks like a

brave man'; and 'Fortune favors the brave.' We put our money on the last

one.

"'Do ye see?' says O'Connor. 'She intends to encourage me sword to save

her country.'

"'It looks to me like an invitation to supper,' says I.

"So every day this señorita sits behind the barred windows and exhausts

a conservatory or two, one posy at a time. And O'Connor walks like a

Dominecker rooster and swells his chest and swears to me he will win her

by feats of arms and big deeds on the gory field of battle.

"By and by the revolution began to get ripe. One day O'Connor takes me

into the back room and tells me all.

"'Bowers,' says he, 'at twelve o'clock one week from to-day the struggle

will take place. It has pleased ye to find amusement and diversion in

this project because ye have not sense enough to perceive that it is

easily accomplished by a man of courage, intelligence, and historical

superiority, such as meself. The whole world over,' says he, 'the

O'Connors have ruled men, women, and nations. To subdue a small

and indifferent country like this is a trifle. Ye see what little,

barefooted manikins the men of it are. I could lick four of 'em

single-handed.'

"'No doubt,' says I. 'But could you lick six? And suppose they hurled an

army of seventeen against you?'

"'Listen,' says O'Connor, 'to what will occur. At noon next Tuesday

25,000 patriots will rise up in the towns of the republic. The

government will be absolutely unprepared. The public buildings will be

taken, the regular army made prisoners, and the new administration set

up. In the capital it will not be so easy on account of most of the army

being stationed there. They will occupy the president's palace and the

strongly fortified government buildings and stand a siege. But on the

very day of the outbreak a body of our troops will begin a march to the

capital from every town as soon as the local victory has been won. The

thing is so well planned that it is an impossibility for us to fail. I

meself will lead the troops from here. The new president will be Señor

Espadas, now Minister of Finance in the present cabinet.'

"'What do you get?' I asked.

"''Twill be strange,' said O'Connor smiling, 'if I don't have all the

jobs handed to me on a silver salver to pick what I choose. I've been

the brains of the scheme, and when the fighting opens I guess I won't be

in the rear rank. Who managed it so our troops could get arms smuggled

into this country? Didn't I arrange it with a New York firm before

I left there? Our financial agents inform me that 20,000 stands of

Winchester rifles have been delivered a month ago at a secret place up

coast and distributed among the towns. I tell you, Bowers, the game is

already won.'

"Well, that kind of talk kind of shook my disbelief in the infallibility

of the serious Irish gentleman soldier of fortune. It certainly seemed

that the patriotic grafters had gone about the thing in a business way.

I looked upon O'Connor with more respect, and began to figure on what

kind of uniform I might wear as Secretary of War.

"Tuesday, the day set for the revolution, came around according to

schedule. O'Connor said that a signal had been agreed upon for the

uprising. There was an old cannon on the beach near the national

warehouse. That had been secretly loaded and promptly at twelve o'clock

was to be fired off. Immediately the revolutionists would seize their

concealed arms, attack the comandante's troops in the cuartel, and

capture the custom-house and all government property and supplies.

"I was nervous all the morning. And about eleven o'clock O'Connor became

infused with the excitement and martial spirit of murder. He geared

his father's sword around him, and walked up and down in the back room

like a lion in the Zoo suffering from corns. I smoked a couple of dozen

cigars, and decided on yellow stripes down the trouser legs of my

uniform.

"At half-past eleven O'Connor asks me to take a short stroll through the

streets to see if I could notice any signs of the uprising. I was back

in fifteen minutes.

"'Did you hear anything?' he asks.

"'I did,' says I. 'At first I thought it was drums. But it wasn't; it

was snoring. Everybody in town's asleep.'

"O'Connor tears out his watch.

"'Fools!' says he. 'They've set the time right at the siesta hour when

everybody takes a nap. But the cannon will wake 'em up. Everything will

be all right, depend upon it.'

"Just at twelve o'clock we heard the sound of a cannon--BOOM!--shaking

the whole town.

"O'Connor loosens his sword in its scabbard and jumps for the door. I

went as far as the door and stood in it.

"People were sticking their heads out of doors and windows. But there

was one grand sight that made the landscape look tame.

"General Tumbalo, the comandante, was rolling down the steps of his

residential dugout, waving a five-foot sabre in his hand. He wore his

cocked and plumed hat and his dress-parade coat covered with gold braid

and buttons. Sky-blue pajamas, one rubber boot, and one red-plush

slipper completed his make-up.

"The general had heard the cannon, and he puffed down the sidewalk

toward the soldiers' barracks as fast as his rudely awakened two hundred

pounds could travel.

"O'Connor sees him and lets out a battle-cry and draws his father's

sword and rushes across the street and tackles the enemy.

"Right there in the street he and the general gave an exhibition of

blacksmithing and butchery. Sparks flew from their blades, the general

roared, and O'Connor gave the slogan of his race and proclivities.

"Then the general's sabre broke in two; and he took to his

ginger-colored heels crying out, 'Policios,' at every jump. O'Connor

chased him a block, imbued with the sentiment of manslaughter, and

slicing buttons off the general's coat tails with the paternal weapon.

At the corner five barefooted policemen in cotton undershirts and

straw fiats climbed over O'Connor and subjugated him according to the

municipal statutes.

"They brought him past the late revolutionary headquarters on the way to

jail. I stood in the door. A policeman had him by each hand and foot,

and they dragged him on his back through the grass like a turtle. Twice

they stopped, and the odd policeman took another's place while he rolled

a cigarette. The great soldier of fortune turned his head and looked

at me as they passed. I blushed, and lit another cigar. The procession

passed on, and at ten minutes past twelve everybody had gone back to

sleep again.

"In the afternoon the interpreter came around and smiled as he laid his

hand on the big red jar we usually kept ice-water in.

"'The ice-man didn't call to-day,' says I. 'What's the matter with

everything, Sancho?'

"'Ah, yes,' says the liver-colored linguist. 'They just tell me in

the town. Verree bad act that Señor O'Connor make fight with General

Tumbalo. Yes, general Tumbalo great soldier and big mans.'

"'What'll they do to Mr. O'Connor?' I asks.

"'I talk little while presently with the Juez de la Paz--what you call

Justice-with-the-peace,' says Sancho. 'He tell me it verree bad crime

that one Señor Americano try kill General Tumbalo. He say they keep

Señor O'Connor in jail six months; then have trial and shoot him with

guns. Verree sorree.'

"'How about this revolution that was to be pulled off?' I asks.

"'Oh,' says this Sancho, 'I think too hot weather for revolution.

Revolution better in winter-time. Maybe so next winter. Quien sabe?'

"'But the cannon went off,' says I. 'The signal was given.'

"'That big sound?' says Sancho, grinning. 'The boiler in ice factory he

blow up--BOOM! Wake everybody up from siesta. Verree sorree. No ice.

Mucho hot day.'

"About sunset I went over to the jail, and they let me talk to O'Connor

through the bars.

"'What's the news, Bowers?' says he. 'Have we taken the town? I've been

expecting a rescue party all the afternoon. I haven't heard any firing.

Has any word been received from the capital?'

"'Take it easy, Barney,' says I. 'I think there's been a change of

plans. There's something more important to talk about. Have you any

money?'

"'I have not,' says O'Connor. 'The last dollar went to pay our hotel

bill yesterday. Did our troops capture the custom-house? There ought be

plenty of government money there.'

"'Segregate your mind from battles,' says I. 'I've been making

inquiries. You're to be shot six months from date for assault and

battery. I'm expecting to receive fifty years at hard labor for

vagrancy. All they furnish you while you're a prisoner is water. You

depend on your friends for food. I'll see what I can do.'

"I went away and found a silver Chile dollar in an old vest of

O'Connor's. I took him some fried fish and rice for his supper. In the

morning I went down to a lagoon and had a drink of water, and then went

back to the jail. O'Connor had a porterhouse steak look in his eye.

"'Barney,' says I, 'I've found a pond full of the finest kind of water.

It's the grandest, sweetest, purest water in the world. Say the word and

I'll go fetch you a bucket of it and you can throw this vile government

stuff out the window. I'll do anything I can for a friend.'

"'Has it come to this?' says O'Connor, raging up and down his cell. 'Am

I to be starved to death and then shot? I'll make those traitors feel

the weight of an O'Connor's hand when I get out of this.' And then he

comes to the bars and speaks softer. 'Has nothing been heard from Dona

Isabel?' he asks. 'Though every one else in the world fail,' says he, 'I

trust those eyes of hers. She will find a way to effect my release. Do

ye think ye could communicate with her? One word from her--even a rose

would make me sorrow light. But don't let her know except with the

utmost delicacy, Bowers. These high-bred Castilians are sensitive and

proud.'

"'Well said, Barney,' says I. 'You've given me an idea. I'll report

later. Something's got to be pulled off quick, or we'll both starve.'

"I walked out and down to Hooligan Alley, and then on the other side of

the street. As I went past the window of Dona Isabel Antonia Concha

Regalia, out flies the rose as usual and hits me on the ear.

"The door was open, and I took off my hat and walked in. It wasn't

very light; inside, but there she sat in a rocking-chair by the window

smoking a black cheroot. And when I got closer I saw that she was about

thirty-nine, and had never seen a straight front in her life. I sat down

on the arm of her chair, and took the cheroot out of her mouth and stole

a kiss.

"'Hullo, Izzy,' I says. 'Excuse my unconventionality, but I feel like I

have known you for a month. Whose Izzy is oo?'

"The lady ducked her head under her mantilla, and drew in a long breath.

I thought she was going to scream, but with all that intake of air she

only came out with: 'Me likee Americanos.'

"As soon as she said that, I knew that O'Connor and me would be doing

things with a knife and fork before the day was over. I drew a chair

beside her, and inside of half an hour we were engaged. Then I took my

hat and said I must go out for a while.

"'You come back?' says Izzy, in alarm.

"'Me go bring preacher,' says I. 'Come back twenty minutes. We marry

now. How you likee?'

"'Marry to-day?' says Izzy. 'Good!'

"I went down on the beach to the United States consul's shack. He was

a grizzly man, eighty-two pounds, smoked glasses, five foot eleven,

pickled. He was playing chess with an india-rubber man in white clothes.

"'Excuse me for interrupting,' says I, 'but can you tell me how a man

could get married quick?'

"The consul gets up and fingers in a pigeonhole.

"'I believe I had a license to perform the ceremony myself, a year or

two ago,' he said. 'I'll look, and--'

"I caught hold of his arm.

"'Don't look it up,' says I. 'Marriage is a lottery anyway. I'm willing

to take the risk about the license if you are.'

"The consul went back to Hooligan Alley with me. Izzy called her ma to

come in, but the old lady was picking a chicken in the patio and begged

to be excused. So we stood up and the consul performed the ceremony.

"That evening Mrs. Bowers cooked a great supper of stewed goat, tamales,

baked bananas, fricasseed red peppers and coffee. Afterward I sat in the

rocking-chair by the front window, and she sat on the floor plunking at

a guitar and happy, as she should be, as Mrs. William T. B.

"All at once I sprang up in a hurry. I'd forgotten all about O'Connor. I

asked Izzy to fix up a lot of truck for him to eat.

"'That big, oogly man,' said Izzy. 'But all right--he your friend.'

"I pulled a rose out of a bunch in a jar, and took the grub-basket

around to the jail. O'Connor ate like a wolf. Then he wiped his face

with a banana peel and said: 'Have you heard nothing from Dona Isabel

yet?'

"'Hist!' says I, slipping the rose between the bars. 'She sends you

this. She bids you take courage. At nightfall two masked men brought it

to the ruined chateau in the orange grove. How did you like that goat

hash, Barney?'

"O'Connor pressed the rose to his lips. "'This is more to me than all

the food in the world,' says he. 'But the supper was fine. Where did you

raise it?'

"'I've negotiated a stand-off at a delicatessen hut downtown,' I tells

him. 'Rest easy. If there's anything to be done I'll do it.'

"So things went along that way for some weeks. Izzy was a great cook;

and if she had had a little more poise of character and smoked a little

better brand of tobacco we might have drifted into some sense of

responsibility for the honor I had conferred on her. But as time went on

I began to hunger for the sight of a real lady standing before me in a

street-car. All I was staying in that land of bilk and money for was

because I couldn't get away, and I thought it no more than decent to

stay and see O'Connor shot.

"One day our old interpreter drops around and after smoking an hour

says that the judge of the peace sent him to request me to call on him.

I went to his office in a lemon grove on a hill at the edge of the

town; and there I had a surprise. I expected to see one of the usual

cinnamon-colored natives in congress gaiters and one of Pizzaro's

cast-off hats. What I saw was an elegant gentleman of a slightly

claybank complexion sitting in an upholstered leather chair, sipping a

highball and reading Mrs. Humphry Ward. I had smuggled into my brain a

few words of Spanish by the help of Izzy, and I began to remark in a

rich Andalusian brogue:

"'Buenas dias, señor. Yo tengo--yo tengo--'

"'Oh, sit down, Mr. Bowers,' says he. 'I spent eight years in your

country in colleges and law schools. Let me mix you a highball. Lemon

peel, or not?'

"Thus we got along. In about half an hour I was beginning to tell

him about the scandal in our family when Aunt Elvira ran away with a

Cumberland Presbyterian preacher. Then he says to me:

"'I sent for you, Mr. Bowers, to let you know that you can have your

friend Mr. O'Connor now. Of course we had to make a show of punishing

him on account of his attack on General Tumbalo. It is arranged that he

shall be released to-morrow night. You and he will be conveyed on board

the fruit steamer Voyager, bound for New York, which lies in the harbor.

Your passage will be arranged for.'

"'One moment, judge,' says I; 'that revolution--'

"The judge lays back in his chair and howls.

"'Why,' says he presently, 'that was all a little joke fixed up by the

boys around the court-room, and one or two of our cut-ups, and a few

clerks in the stores. The town is bursting its sides with laughing. The

boys made themselves up to be conspirators, and they--what you call

it?--stick Señor O'Connor for his money. It is very funny.'

"'It was,' says I. 'I saw the joke all along. I'll take another

highball, if your Honor don't mind.'

"The next evening just at dark a couple of soldiers brought O'Connor

down to the beach, where I was waiting under a cocoanut-tree.

"'Hist!' says I in his ear: 'Dona Isabel has arranged our escape. Not a

word!'

"They rowed us in a boat out to a little steamer that smelled of table

d'hote salad oil and bone phosphate.

"The great, mellow, tropical moon was rising as we steamed away.

O'Connor leaned on the taffrail or rear balcony of the ship and gazed

silently at Guaya--at Buncoville-on-the-Beach.

"He had the red rose in his hand.

"'She will wait,' I heard him say. 'Eyes like hers never deceive. But I

shall see her again. Traitors cannot keep an O'Connor down forever.'

"'You talk like a sequel,' says I. 'But in Volume II please omit the

light-haired friend who totes the grub to the hero in his dungeon cell.'

"And thus reminiscing, we came back to New York."

There was a little silence broken only by the familiar roar of the

streets after Kansas Bill Bowers ceased talking.

"Did O'Connor ever go back?" I asked.

"He attained his heart's desire," said Bill. "Can you walk two blocks?

I'll show you."

He led me eastward and down a flight of stairs that was covered by a

curious-shaped glowing, pagoda-like structure. Signs and figures on the

tiled walls and supporting columns attested that we were in the Grand

Central station of the subway. Hundreds of people were on the midway

platform.

An uptown express dashed up and halted. It was crowded. There was a

rush for it by a still larger crowd.

Towering above every one there a magnificent, broad-shouldered, athletic

man leaped into the centre of the struggle. Men and women he seized in

either hand and hurled them like manikins toward the open gates of the

train.

Now and then some passenger with a shred of soul and self-respect

left to him turned to offer remonstrance; but the blue uniform on the

towering figure, the fierce and conquering glare of his eye and the

ready impact of his ham-like hands glued together the lips that would

have spoken complaint.

When the train was full, then he exhibited to all who might observe and

admire his irresistible genius as a ruler of men. With his knees, with

his elbows, with his shoulders, with his resistless feet he shoved,

crushed, slammed, heaved, kicked, flung, pounded the overplus of

passengers aboard. Then with the sounds of its wheels drowned by the

moans, shrieks, prayers, and curses of its unfortunate crew, the express

dashed away.

"That's him. Ain't he a wonder?" said Kansas Bill admiringly. "That

tropical country wasn't the place for him. I wish the distinguished

traveller, writer, war correspondent, and playright, Richmond Hobson

Davis, could see him now. O'Connor ought to be dramatized."

[Illustration: O. Henry in Austin, Texas, 1896]

THE ATAVISM OF JOHN TOM LITTLE BEAR

[O. Henry thought this the best of the Jeff Peters stories,

all the rest of which are included in "The Gentle Grafter,"

except "Cupid à la Carte" in the "Heart of the West." "The

Atavism of John Tom Little Bear" appeared in _Everybody's

Magazine_ for July, 1903.]

I saw a light in Jeff Peters's room over the Red Front Drug Store. I

hastened toward it, for I had not known that Jeff was in town. He is a

man of the Hadji breed, of a hundred occupations, with a story to tell

(when he will) of each one.

I found Jeff repacking his grip for a run down to Florida to look at an

orange grove for which he had traded, a month before, his mining claim

on the Yukon. He kicked me a chair, with the same old humorous, profound

smile on his seasoned countenance. It had been eight months since we

had met, but his greeting was such as men pass from day to day. Time is

Jeff's servant, and the continent is a big lot across which he cuts to

his many roads.

For a while we skirmished along the edges of unprofitable talk which

culminated in that unquiet problem of the Philippines.

"All them tropical races," said Jeff, "could be run out better with

their own jockeys up. The tropical man knows what he wants. All he

wants is a season ticket to the cock-fights and a pair of Western Union

climbers to go up the bread-fruit tree. The Anglo-Saxon man wants him

to learn to conjugate and wear suspenders. He'll be happiest in his own

way."

I was shocked.

"Education, man," I said, "is the watchword. In time they will rise to

our standard of civilization. Look at what education has done for the

Indian."

"O-ho!" sang Jeff, lighting his pipe (which was a good sign). "Yes, the

Indian! I'm looking. I hasten to contemplate the redman as a standard

bearer of progress. He's the same as the other brown boys. You can't

make an Anglo-Saxon of him. Did I ever tell you about the time my friend

John Tom Little Bear bit off the right ear of the arts of culture and

education and spun the teetotum back round to where it was when Columbus

was a little boy? I did not?

"John Tom Little Bear was an educated Cherokee Indian and an old friend

of mine when I was in the Territories. He was a graduate of one of them

Eastern football colleges that have been so successful in teaching the

Indian to use the gridiron instead of burning his victims at the stake.

As an Anglo-Saxon, John Tom was copper-colored in spots. As an Indian,

he was one of the whitest men I ever knew. As a Cherokee, he was a

gentleman on the first ballot. As a ward of the nation, he was mighty

hard to carry at the primaries.

"John Tom and me got together and began to make medicine--how to get up

some lawful, genteel swindle which we might work in a quiet way so as

not to excite the stupidity of the police or the cupidity of the larger

corporations. We had close upon $500 between us, and we pined to make it

grow, as all respectable capitalists do.

"So we figured out a proposition which seems to be as honorable as a

gold mine prospectus and as profitable as a church raffle. And inside

of thirty days you find us swarming into Kansas with a pair of fluent

horses and a red camping wagon on the European plan. John Tom is Chief

Wish-Heap-Dough, the famous Indian medicine man and Samaritan Sachem

of the Seven Tribes. Mr. Peters is business manager and half owner. We

needed a third man, so we looked around and found J. Conyngham Binkly

leaning against the want column of a newspaper. This Binkly has a

disease for Shakespearian rôles, and an hallucination about a 200

nights' run on the New York stage. But he confesses that he never could

earn the butter to spread on his William S. rôles, so he is willing to

drop to the ordinary baker's kind, and be satisfied with a 200-mile

run behind the medicine ponies. Besides Richard III, he could do

twenty-seven coon songs and banjo specialties, and was willing to cook,

and curry the horses. We carried a fine line of excuses for taking

money. One was a magic soap for removing grease spots and quarters from

clothes. One was a Sum-wah-tah, the great Indian Remedy made from a

prairie herb revealed by the Great Spirit in a dream to his favorite

medicine men, the great chiefs McGarrity and Siberstein, bottlers,

Chicago. And the other was a frivolous system of pick-pocketing the

Kansasters that had the department stores reduced to a decimal fraction.

Look ye! A pair of silk garters, a dream book, one dozen clothespins,

a gold tooth, and 'When Knighthood Was in Flower' all wrapped up in a

genuine Japanese silkarina handkerchief and handed to the handsome lady

by Mr. Peters for the trivial sum of fifty cents, while Professor Binkly

entertains us in a three-minute round with the banjo.

"'Twas an eminent graft we had. We ravaged peacefully through the State,

determined to remove all doubt as to why 'twas called bleeding Kansas.

John Tom Little Bear, in full Indian chief's costume, drew crowds away

from the parchesi sociables and government ownership conversaziones.

While at the football college in the East he had acquired quantities

of rhetoric and the art of calisthenics and sophistry in his classes,

and when he stood up in the red wagon and explained to the farmers,

eloquent, about chilblains and hyperÊsthesia of the cranium, Jeff

couldn't hand out the Indian Remedy fast enough for 'em.

"One night we was camped on the edge of a little town out west of

Salina. We always camped near a stream, and put up a little tent.

Sometimes we sold out of the Remedy unexpected, and then Chief

Wish-Heap-Dough would have a dream in which the Manitou commanded him to

fill up a few bottles of Sum-wah-tah at the most convenient place. 'Twas

about ten o'clock, and we'd just got in from a street performance. I was

in the tent with the lantern, figuring up the day's profits. John Tom

hadn't taken off his Indian make-up, and was sitting by the campfire

minding a fine sirloin steak in the pan for the Professor till he

finished his hair-raising scene with the trained horses.

"All at once out of dark bushes comes a pop like a firecracker, and John

Tom gives a grunt and digs out of his bosom a little bullet that has

dented itself against his collar-bone. John Tom makes a dive in the

direction of the fireworks, and comes back dragging by the collar a

kid about nine or ten years young, in a velveteen suit, with a little

nickel-mounted rifle in his hand about as big as a fountain-pen.

"'Here, you pappoose,' says John Tom, 'what are you gunning for with

that howitzer? You might hit somebody in the eye. Come out, Jeff, and

mind the steak. Don't let it burn, while I investigate this demon with

the pea shooter.'

"'Cowardly redskin,' says the kid like he was quoting from a favorite

author. 'Dare to burn me at the stake and the paleface will sweep you

from the prairies like--like everything. Now, you lemme go, or I'll tell

mamma.'

"John Tom plants the kid on a camp-stool, and sits down by him. 'Now,

tell the big chief,' he says, 'why you try to shoot pellets into your

Uncle John's system. Didn't you know it was loaded?'

"'Are you a Indian?' asks the kid, looking up cute as you please at John

Tom's buckskin and eagle feathers.

"'I am,' says John Tom. 'Well, then, that's why,' answers the boy,

swinging his feet. I nearly let the steak burn watching the nerve of

that youngster.

"'O-ho!' says John Tom, 'I see. You're the Boy Avenger. And you've

sworn to rid the continent of the savage redman. Is that about the way

of it, son?'

"The kid halfway nodded his head. And then he looked glum. 'Twas

indecent to wring his secret from his bosom before a single brave had

fallen before his parlor-rifle.

"'Now, tell us where your wigwam is, pappoose,' says John Tom--'where

you live? Your mamma will be worrying about you being out so late. Tell

me, and I'll take you home.'

"The kid grins. 'I guess not,' he says. 'I live thousands and thousands

of miles over there.' He gyrated his hand toward the horizon. 'I come on

the train,' he says, 'by myself. I got off here because the conductor

said my ticket had ex-pirated.' He looks at John Tom with sudden

suspicion 'I bet you ain't a Indian,' he says. 'You don't talk like a

Indian. You look like one, but all a Indian can say is "heap good" and

"paleface die." Say, I bet you are one of them make-believe Indians that

sell medicine on the streets. I saw one once in Quincy.'

"'You never mind,' says John Tom, 'whether I'm a cigar-sign or a Tammany

cartoon. The question before the council is what's to be done with you.

You've run away from home. You've been reading Howells. You've disgraced

the profession of boy avengers by trying to shoot a tame Indian, and

never saying: "Die, dog of a redskin! You have crossed the path of the

Boy Avenger nineteen times too often." What do you mean by it?'

"The kid thought for a minute. 'I guess I made a mistake,' he says. 'I

ought to have gone farther west. They find 'em wild out there in the

canyons.' He holds out his hand to John Tom, the little rascal. 'Please

excuse me, sir,' says he, 'for shooting at you. I hope it didn't hurt

you. But you ought to be more careful. When a scout sees a Indian in his

war-dress, his rifle must speak.' Little Bear give a big laugh with a

whoop at the end of it, and swings the kid ten feet high and sets him on

his shoulder, and the runaway fingers the fringe and the eagle feathers

and is full of the joy the white man knows when he dangles his heels

against an inferior race. It is plain that Little Bear and that kid are

chums from that on. The little renegade has already smoked the pipe of

peace with the savage; and you can see in his eye that he is figuring on

a tomahawk and a pair of moccasins, children's size.

"We have supper in the tent. The youngster looks upon me and the

Professor as ordinary braves, only intended as a background to the camp

scene. When he is seated on a box of Sum-wah-tah, with the edge of the

table sawing his neck, and his mouth full of beefsteak, Little Bear

calls for his name. 'Roy,' says the kid, with a sirloiny sound to it.

But when the rest of it and his post-office address is referred to, he

shakes his head. 'I guess not,' he says. 'You'll send me back. I want to

stay with you. I like this camping out. At home, we fellows had a camp

in our back yard. They called me Roy, the Red Wolf! I guess that'll do

for a name. Gimme another piece of beefsteak, please.'

"We had to keep that kid. We knew there was a hullabaloo about him

somewheres, and that Mamma, and Uncle Harry, and Aunt Jane, and the

Chief of Police were hot after finding his trail, but not another word

would he tell us. In two days he was the mascot of the Big Medicine

outfit, and all of us had a sneaking hope that his owners wouldn't turn

up. When the red wagon was doing business he was in it, and passed up

the bottles to Mr. Peters as proud and satisfied as a prince that's

abjured a two-hundred-dollar crown for a million-dollar parvenuess. Once

John Tom asked him something about his papa. 'I ain't got any papa,' he

says. 'He runned away and left us. He made my mamma cry. Aunt Lucy says

he's a shape.' 'A what?' somebody asks him. 'A shape,' says the kid;

'some kind of a shape--lemme see--oh, yes, a feendenuman shape. I don't

know what it means.' John Tom was for putting our brand on him, and

dressing him up like a little chief, with wampum and beads, but I vetoes

it. 'Somebody's lost that kid, is my view of it, and they may want him.

You let me try him with a few stratagems, and see if I can't get a look

at his visiting-card.'

"So that night I goes up to Mr. Roy Blank by the camp-fire, and looks at

him contemptuous and scornful. 'Snickenwitzel!' says I, like the word

made me sick; 'Snickenwitzel! Bah! Before I'd be named Snickenwitzel!'

"'What's the matter with you, Jeff?' says the kid, opening his eyes

wide.

"'Snickenwitzel!' I repeats, and I spat, the word out. 'I saw a man

to-day from your town, and he told me your name. I'm not surprised you

was ashamed to tell it. Snickenwitzel! Whew!'

"'Ah, here, now,' says the boy, indignant and wriggling all over,

'what's the matter with you? That ain't my name. It's Conyers. What's

the matter with you?'

"'And that's not the worst of it,' I went on quick, keeping him hot

and not giving him time to think. 'We thought you was from a nice,

well-to-do family. Here's Mr. Little Bear, a chief of the Cherokees,

entitled to wear nine otter tails on his Sunday blanket, and Professor

Binkly, who plays Shakespeare and the banjo, and me, that's got hundreds

of dollars in that black tin box in the wagon, and we've got to be

careful about the company we keep. That man tells me your folks live

'way down in little old Hencoop Alley, where there are no sidewalks, and

the goats eat off the table with you.'

"That kid was almost crying now. ''Taint so,' he splutters. 'He--he

don't know what he's talking about. We live on Poplar Av'noo. I don't

'sociate with goats. What's the matter with you?'

"'Poplar Avenue,' says I, sarcastic. 'Poplar Avenue! That's a street to

live on! It only runs two blocks and then falls off a bluff. You can

throw a keg of nails the whole length of it. Don't talk to me about

Poplar Avenue.'

"'It's--it's miles long,' says the kid. 'Our number's 862 and there's

lots of houses after that. What's the matter with--aw, you make me

tired, Jeff.'

"'Well, well, now,' says I. 'I guess that man made a mistake. Maybe it

was some other boy he was talking about. If I catch him I'll teach him

to go around slandering people.' And after supper I goes up town and

telegraphs to Mrs. Conyers, 862 Poplar Avenue, Quincy, Ill., that the

kid is safe and sassy with us, and will be held for further orders. In

two hours an answer comes to hold him tight, and she'll start for him by

next train.

"The next train was due at 6 P.M. the next day, and me and John Tom was

at the depot with the kid. You might scour the plains in vain for the

big Chief Wish-Heap-Dough. In his place is Mr. Little Bear in the human

habiliments of the Anglo-Saxon sect; and the leather of his shoes is

patented and the loop of his necktie is copyrighted. For these things

John Tom had grafted on him at college along with metaphysics and the

knockout guard for the low tackle. But for his complexion, which is

some yellowish, and the black mop of his straight hair, you might

have thought here was an ordinary man out of the city directory that

subscribes for magazines and pushes the lawn-mower in his shirt-sleeves

of evenings.

"Then the train rolled in, and a little woman in a gray dress, with sort

of illuminating hair, slides off and looks around quick. And the Boy

Avenger sees her, and yells 'Mamma,' and she cries 'O!' and they meet

in a clinch, and now the pesky redskins can come forth from their caves

on the plains without fear any more of the rifle of Roy, the Red Wolf.

Mrs. Conyers comes up and thanks me an' John Tom without the usual

extremities you always look for in a woman. She says just enough, in

a way to convince, and there is no incidental music by the orchestra.

I made a few illiterate requisitions upon the art of conversation, at

which the lady smiles friendly, as if she had known me a week. And then

Mr. Little Bear adorns the atmosphere with the various idioms into which

education can fracture the wind of speech. I could see the kid's mother

didn't quite place John Tom; but it seemed she was apprised in his

dialects, and she played up to his lead in the science of making three

words do the work of one.

"That kid introduced us, with some footnotes and explanations that made

things plainer than a week of rhetoric. He danced around, and punched

us in the back, and tried to climb John Tom's leg. 'This is John Tom,

mamma,' says he. 'He's a Indian. He sells medicine in a red wagon. I

shot him, but he wasn't wild. The other one's Jeff. He's a fakir, too.

Come on and see the camp where we live, won't you, mamma?'

"It is plain to see that the life of the woman is in that boy. She has

got him again where her arms can gather him, and that's enough. She's

ready to do anything to please him. She hesitates the eighth of a second

and takes another look at these men. I imagine she says to herself about

John Tom, 'Seems to be a gentleman, if his hair don't curl.' And Mr.

Peters she disposes of as follows: 'No ladies' man, but a man who knows

a lady.'

"So we all rambled down to the camp as neighborly as coming from a

wake. And there she inspects the wagon and pats the place with her hand

where the kid used to sleep, and dabs around her eyewinkers with her

handkerchief. And Professor Binkly gives us 'Trovatore' on one string of

the banjo, and is about to slide off into Hamlet's monologue when one of

the horses gets tangled in his rope and he must go look after him, and

says something about 'foiled again.'

"When it got dark me and John Tom walked back up to the Corn Exchange

Hotel, and the four of us had supper there. I think the trouble started

at that supper, for then was when Mr. Little Bear made an intellectual

balloon ascension. I held on to the tablecloth, and listened to him

soar. That redman, if I could judge, had the gift of information. He

took language, and did with it all a Roman can do with macaroni. His

vocal remarks was all embroidered over with the most scholarly verbs and

prefixes. And his syllables was smooth, and fitted nicely to the joints

of his idea. I thought I'd heard him talk before, but I hadn't. And it

wasn't the size of his words, but the way they come; and 'twasn't his

subjects, for he spoke of common things like cathedrals and football

and poems and catarrh and souls and freight rates and sculpture. Mrs.

Conyers understood his accents, and the elegant sounds went back and

forth between 'em. And now and then Jefferson D. Peters would intervene

a few shop-worn, senseless words to have the butter passed or another

leg of the chicken.

"Yes, John Tom Little Bear appeared to be inveigled some in his bosom

about that Mrs. Conyers. She was of the kind that pleases. She had the

good looks and more, I'll tell you. You take one of these cloak models

in a big store. They strike you as being on the impersonal system.

They are adapted for the eye. What they run to is inches around and

complexion, and the art of fanning the delusion that the sealskin would

look just as well on the lady with the warts and the pocket-book. Now,

if one of them models was off duty, and you took it, and it would say

'Charlie' when you pressed it, and sit up at the table, why, then you

would have something similar to Mrs. Conyers. I could see how John Tom

could resist any inclination to hate that white squaw.

"The lady and the kid stayed at the hotel. In the morning, they say,

they will start for home. Me and Little Bear left at eight o'clock, and

sold Indian Remedy on the courthouse square till nine. He leaves me

and the Professor to drive down to camp, while he stays up town. I am

not enamored with that plan, for it shows John Tom is uneasy in his

composures, and that leads to firewater, and sometimes to the green corn

dance and costs. Not often does Chief Wish-Heap-Dough get busy with the

firewater, but whenever he does there is heap much doing in the lodges

of the palefaces who wear blue and carry the club.

"At half-past nine Professor Binkly is rolled in his quilt snoring in

blank verse, and I am sitting by the fire listening to the frogs. Mr.

Little Bear slides into camp and sits down against a tree. There is no

symptoms of firewater.

"'Jeff,' says he, after a long time, 'a little boy came West to hunt

Indians.'

"'Well, then?' says I, for I wasn't thinking as he was.

"'And he bagged one,' says John Tom, 'and 'twas not with a gun, and he

never had on a velveteen suit of clothes in his life.' And then I began

to catch his smoke.

"'I know it,' says I. 'And I'll bet you his pictures are on valentines,

and fool men are his game, red and white.'

"'You win on the red,' says John Tom, calm. 'Jeff, for how many ponies

do you think I could buy Mrs. Conyers?'

"'Scandalous talk!' I replies. ''Tis not a paleface custom.' John Tom

laughs loud and bites into a cigar. 'No,' he answers; ''tis the savage

equivalent for the dollars of the white man's marriage settlement. Oh, I

know. There's an eternal wall between the races. If I could do it, Jeff,

I'd put a torch to every white college that a redman has ever set foot

inside. Why don't you leave us alone,' he says, 'to our own ghost-dances

and dog-feasts, and our dingy squaws to cook our grasshopper soup and

darn our moccasins?'

"'Now, you sure don't mean disrespect to the perennial blossom entitled

education?' says I, scandalized, 'because I wear it in the bosom of my

own intellectual shirt-waist. I've had education,' says I, 'and never

took any harm from it.'

"'You lasso us,' goes on Little Bear, not noticing my prose insertions,

'and teach us what is beautiful in literature and in life, and how to

appreciate what is fine in men and women. What have you done to me?'

says he. 'You've made me a Cherokee Moses. You've taught me to hate the

wigwams and love the white man's ways. I can look over into the promised

land and see Mrs. Conyers, but my place is--on the reservation.'

"Little Bear stands up in his chief's dress, and laughs again. 'But,

white man Jeff,' he goes on, 'the paleface provides a recourse. 'Tis a

temporary one, but it gives a respite and the name of it is whiskey.'

And straight off he walks up the path to town again. 'Now,' says I in my

mind, 'may the Manitou move him to do only bailable things this night!'

For I perceive that John Tom is about to avail himself of the white

man's solace.

"Maybe it was 10:30, as I sat smoking, when I hear pit-a-pats on

the path, and here comes Mrs. Conyers running, her hair twisted up

any way, and a look on her face that says burglars and mice and the

flour's-all-out rolled in one. 'Oh, Mr. Peters,' she calls out, as they

will, 'oh, oh!' I made a quick think, and I spoke the gist of it out

loud. 'Now,' says I, 'we've been brothers, me and that Indian, but I'll

make a good one of him in two minutes if--'

"'No, no,' she says, wild and cracking her knuckles, 'I haven't seen Mr.

Little Bear. 'Tis my--husband. He's stolen my boy. Oh,' she says, 'just

when I had him back in my arms again! That heartless villain! Every

bitterness life knows,' she says, 'he's made me drink. My poor little

lamb, that ought to be warm in his bed, carried of by that fiend!'

"'How did all this happen?' I ask. 'Let's have the facts.'

"'I was fixing his bed,' she explains, 'and Roy was playing on the hotel

porch and he drives up to the steps. I heard Roy scream, and ran out. My

husband had him in the buggy then. I begged him for my child. This is

what he gave me.' She turns her face to the light. There is a crimson

streak running across her cheek and mouth. 'He did that with his whip,'

she says.

"'Come back to the hotel,' says I, 'and we'll see what can be done.'

"On the way she tells me some of the wherefores. When he slashed her

with the whip he told her he found out she was coming for the kid, and

he was on the same train. Mrs. Conyers had been living with her brother,

and they'd watched the boy always, as her husband had tried to steal him

before. I judge that man was worse than a street railway promoter. It

seems he had spent her money and slugged her and killed her canary bird,

and told it around that she had cold feet.

"At the hotel we found a mass meeting of five infuriated citizens

chewing tobacco and denouncing the outrage. Most of the town was asleep

by ten o'clock. I talks the lady some quiet, and tells her I will take

the one o'clock train for the next town, forty miles east, for it is

likely that the esteemed Mr. Conyers will drive there to take the cars.

'I don't know,' I tells her, 'but what he has legal rights; but if I

find him I can give him an illegal left in the eye, and tie him up for

a day or two, anyhow, on a disturbal of the peace proposition.'

"Mrs. Conyers goes inside and cries with the landlord's wife, who is

fixing some catnip tea that will make everything all right for the poor

dear. The landlord comes out on the porch, thumbing his one suspender,

and says to me:

"'Ain't had so much excitements in town since Bedford Steegall's wife

swallered a spring lizard. I seen him through the winder hit her with

the buggy whip, and everything. What's that suit of clothes cost you you

got on? 'Pears like we'd have some rain, don't it? Say, doc, that Indian

of yorn's on a kind of a whizz to-night, ain't he? He comes along just

before you did, and I told him about this here occurrence. He gives a

cur'us kind of a hoot, and trotted off. I guess our constable 'll have

him in the lock-up 'fore morning.'

"I thought I'd sit on the porch and wait for the one o'clock train. I

wasn't feeling saturated with mirth. Here was John Tom on one of his

sprees, and this kidnapping business losing sleep for me. But then, I'm

always having trouble with other people's troubles. Every few minutes

Mrs. Conyers would come out on the porch and look down the road the way

the buggy went, like she expected to see that kid coming back on a white

pony with a red apple in his hand. Now, wasn't that like a woman? And

that brings up cats. 'I saw a mouse go in this hole,' says Mrs. Cat;

'you can go prize up a plank over there if you like; I'll watch this

hole.'

"About a quarter to one o'clock the lady comes out again, restless,

crying easy, as females do for their own amusement, and she looks

down that road again and listens. 'Now, ma'am,' says I, 'there's no

use watching cold wheel-tracks. By this time they're halfway to--'

'Hush,' she says, holding up her hand. And I do hear something coming

'flip-flap' in the dark; and then there is the awfulest war-whoop ever

heard outside of Madison Square Garden at a Buffalo Bill matinée. And up

the steps and on to the porch jumps the disrespectable Indian. The lamp

in the hall shines on him, and I fail to recognize Mr. J. T. Little

Bear, alumnus of the class of '91. What I see is a Cherokee brave, and

the warpath is what he has been travelling. Firewater and other things

have got him going. His buckskin is hanging in strings, and his

feathers are mixed up like a frizzly hen's. The dust of miles is on his

moccasins, and the light in his eye is the kind the aborigines wear. But

in his arms he brings that kid, his eyes half closed, with his little

shoes dangling and one hand fast around the Indian's collar.

"'Pappoose!' says John Tom, and I notice that the flowers of the white

man's syntax have left his tongue. He is the original proposition in

bear's claws and copper color. 'Me bring,' says he, and he lays the kid

in his mother's arms. 'Run fifteen mile,' says John Tom--'Ugh! Catch

white man. Bring pappoose.'

"The little woman is in extremities of gladness. She must wake up that

stir-up trouble youngster and hug him and make proclamation that he is

his mamma's own precious treasure. I was about to ask questions, but I

looked at Mr. Little Bear, and my eye caught the sight of something in

his belt. 'Now go to bed, ma'am,' says I, 'and this gadabout youngster

likewise, for there's no more danger, and the kidnapping business is not

what it was earlier in the night.'

"I inveigled John Tom down to camp quick, and when he tumbled over

asleep I got that thing out of his belt and disposed of it where the eye

of education can't see it. For even the football colleges disapprove of

the art of scalp-taking in their curriculums.

"It is ten o'clock next day when John Tom wakes up and looks around. I

am glad to see the nineteenth century in his eyes again.

"'What was it, Jeff?' he asks.

"'Heap firewater,' says I.

"John Tom frowns, and thinks a little. 'Combined,' says he directly,

'with the interesting little physiological shake-up known as reversion

to type. I remember now. Have they gone yet?'

"'On the 7:30 train,' I answers.

"'Ugh!' says John Tom; 'better so. Paleface, bring big Chief

Wish-Heap-Dough a little bromo-seltzer, and then he'll take up the

redman's burden again.'"

[Illustration: Emigrants' Camp (An early drawing by O. Henry)]

HELPING THE OTHER FELLOW

[Originally published in _Munsey's Magazine_, December,

1908.]

"But can thim that helps others help thimselves!"

--Mulvaney.

This is the story that William Trotter told me on the beach at Aguas

Frescas while I waited for the gig of the captain of the fruit steamer

_Andador_ which was to take me abroad. Reluctantly I was leaving the

Land of Always Afternoon. William was remaining, and he favored me with

a condensed oral autobiography as we sat on the sands in the shade cast

by the Bodega Nacional.

As usual, I became aware that the Man from Bombay had already written

the story; but as he had compressed it to an eight-word sentence, I have

become an expansionist, and have quoted his phrase above, with apologies

to him and best regards to _Terence_.

II

"Don't you ever have a desire to go back to the land of derby hats and

starched collars?" I asked him. "You seem to be a handy man and a man of

action," I continued, "and I am sure I could find you a comfortable job

somewhere in the States."

Ragged, shiftless, barefooted, a confirmed eater of the lotos, William

Trotter had pleased me much, and I hated to see him gobbled up by the

tropics.

"I've no doubt you could," he said, idly splitting the bark from a

section of sugar-cane. "I've no doubt you could do much for me. If every

man could do as much for himself as he can for others, every country in

the world would be holding millenniums instead of centennials."

There seemed to be pabulum in W. T.'s words. And then another idea came

to me.

I had a brother in Chicopee Falls who owned manufactories--cotton, or

sugar, or A. A. sheetings, or something in the commercial line. He was

vulgarly rich, and therefore reverenced art. The artistic temperament of

the family was monopolized at my birth. I knew that Brother James would

honor my slightest wish. I would demand from him a position in cotton,

sugar, or sheetings for William Trotter--something, say, at two hundred

a month or thereabouts. I confided my beliefs and made my large

propositions to William. He had pleased me much, and he was ragged.

While we were talking, there was a sound of firing guns--four or five,

rattlingly, as if by a squad. The cheerful noise came from the direction

of the cuartel, which is a kind of makeshift barracks for the soldiers

of the republic.

"Hear that?" said William Trotter. "Let me tell you about it.

"A year ago I landed on this coast with one solitary dollar. I have the

same sum in my pocket to-day. I was second cook on a tramp fruiter; and

they marooned me here early one morning, without benefit of clergy, just

because I poulticed the face of the first mate with cheese omelette at

dinner. The fellow had kicked because I'd put horseradish in it instead

of cheese.

"When they threw me out of the yawl into three feet of surf, I waded

ashore and sat down under a palm-tree. By and by a fine-looking white

man with a red face and white clothes, genteel as possible, but somewhat

under the influence, came and sat down beside me.

"I had noticed there was a kind of a village back of the beach, and

enough scenery to outfit a dozen moving-picture shows. But I thought, of

course, it was a cannibal suburb, and I was wondering whether I was to

be served with carrots or mushrooms. And, as I say, this dressed-up man

sits beside me, and we become friends in the space of a minute or two.

For an hour we talked, and he told me all about it.

"It seems that he was a man of parts, conscientiousness, and

plausibility, besides being educated and a wreck to his appetites. He

told me all about it. Colleges had turned him out, and distilleries had

taken him in. Did I tell you his name? It was Clifford Wainwright. I

didn't exactly catch the cause of his being cast away on that particular

stretch of South America; but I reckon it was his own business. I asked

him if he'd ever been second cook on a tramp fruiter, and he said no; so

that concluded my line of surmises. But he talked like the encyclopedia

from 'A--Berlin' to 'Trilo--Zyria.' And he carried a watch--a silver

arrangement with works, and up to date within twenty-four hours, anyhow.

"'I'm pleased to have met you,' says Wainwright. 'I'm a devotee to the

great joss Booze; but my ruminating facilities are unrepaired,' says

he--or words to that effect. 'And I hate,' says he, 'to see fools trying

to run the world.'

"'I never touch a drop,' says I, 'and there are many kinds of fools; and

the world runs on its own apex, according to science, with no meddling

from me.'

"'I was referring,' says he, 'to the president of this republic. His

country is in a desperate condition. Its treasury is empty, it's on the

verge of war with Nicamala, and if it wasn't for the hot weather the

people would be starting revolutions in every town. Here is a nation,'

goes on Wainwright, 'on the brink of destruction. A man of intelligence

could rescue it from its impending doom in one day by issuing the

necessary edicts and orders. President Gomez knows nothing of

statesmanship or policy. Do you know Adam Smith?'

"'Lemme see,' says I. 'There was a one-eared man named Smith in Fort

Worth, Texas, but I think his first name was--'

"'I am referring to the political economist,' says Wainwright.

"'S'mother Smith, then,' says I. 'The one I speak of never was

arrested.'

"So Wainwright boils some more with indignation at the insensibility of

people who are not corpulent to fill public positions; and then he tells

me he is going out to the president's summer palace, which is four miles

from Aguas Frescas, to instruct him in the art of running steam-heated

republics.

"'Come along with me, Trotter,' says he, 'and I'll show you what brains

can do.'

"'Anything in it?' I asks.

"'The satisfaction,' says he, 'of redeeming a country of two hundred

thousand population from ruin back to prosperity and peace.'

"'Great,' says I. 'I'll go with you. I'd prefer to eat a live broiled

lobster just now; but give me liberty as second choice if I can't be in

at the death.'

"Wainwright and me permeates through the town, and he halts at a

rum-dispensary.

"'Have you any money?' he asks.

"'I have,' says I, fishing out my silver dollar. 'I always go about with

adequate sums of money.'

"'Then we'll drink,' says Wainwright.

"'Not me,' says I. 'Not any demon rum or any of its ramifications for

mine. It's one of my non-weaknesses.'

"'It's my failing,' says he. 'What's your particular soft point?'

"'Industry,' says I, promptly. 'I'm hard-working, diligent, industrious,

and energetic.'

"'My dear Mr. Trotter,' says he, 'surely I've known you long enough

to tell you you are a liar. Every man must have his own particular

weakness, and his own particular strength in other things. Now, you will

buy me a drink of rum, and we will call on President Gomez.'"

III

"Well, sir," Trotter went on, "we walks the four miles out, through a

virgin conservatory of palms and ferns and other roof-garden products,

to the president's summer White House. It was blue, and reminded you of

what you see on the stage in the third act, which they describe as 'same

as the first' on the programs.

"There was more than fifty people waiting outside the iron fence that

surrounded the house and grounds. There was generals and agitators and

épergnes in gold-laced uniforms, and citizens in diamonds and Panama

hats--all waiting to get an audience with the Royal Five-Card Draw.

And in a kind of a summer-house in front of the mansion we could see

a burnt-sienna man eating breakfast out of gold dishes and taking his

time. I judged that the crowd outside had come out for their morning

orders and requests, and was afraid to intrude.

"But C. Wainwright wasn't. The gate was open, and he walked inside and

up to the president's table as confident as a man who knows the head

waiter in a fifteen-cent restaurant. And I went with him, because I had

only seventy-five cents, and there was nothing else to do.

"The Gomez man rises from his chair, and looks, colored man as he was,

like he was about to call out for corporal of the guard, post number

one. But Wainwright says some phrases to him in a peculiarly lubricating

manner; and the first thing you know we was all three of us seated at

the table, with coffee and rolls and iguana cutlets coming as fast as

about ninety peons could rustle 'em.

"And then Wainwright begins to talk; but the president interrupts him.

"'You Yankees,' says he, polite, 'assuredly take the cake for assurance,

I assure you'--or words to that effect. He spoke English better than you

or me. 'You've had a long walk,' says he, 'but it's nicer in the cool

morning to walk than to ride. May I suggest some refreshments?' says he.

"'Rum,' says Wainwright.

"'Gimme a cigar,' says I.

"Well, sir, the two talked an hour, keeping the generals and equities

all in their good uniforms waiting outside the fence. And while I

smoked, silent, I listened to Clifford Wainwright making a solid

republic out of the wreck of one. I didn't follow his arguments with

any special collocation of international intelligibility; but he had Mr.

Gomez's attention glued and riveted. He takes out a pencil and marks

the white linen tablecloth all over with figures and estimates and

deductions. He speaks more or less disrespectfully of import and export

duties and custom-house receipts and taxes and treaties and budgets and

concessions and such truck that politics and government require; and

when he gets through the Gomez man hops up and shakes his hand and says

he's saved the country and the people.

"'You shall be rewarded,' says the president.

"'Might I suggest another--rum?' says Wainwright.

"'Cigar for me--darker brand,' says I.

"Well, sir, the president sent me and Wainwright back to the town in a

victoria hitched to two flea-bitten selling-platers--but the best the

country afforded.

"I found out afterward that Wainwright was a regular beachcomber--the

smartest man on the whole coast, but kept down by rum. I liked him.

"One day I inveigled him into a walk out a couple of miles from the

village, where there was an old grass hut on the bank of a little river.

While he was sitting on the grass, talking beautiful of the wisdom of

the world that he had learned in books, I took hold of him easy and tied

his hands and feet together with leather thongs that I had in my pocket.

"'Lie still,' says I, 'and meditate on the exigencies and irregularities

of life till I get back.'

"I went to a shack in Aguas Frescas where a mighty wise girl named

Timotea Carrizo lived with her mother. The girl was just about as nice

as you ever saw. In the States she would have been called a brunette;

but she was better than a brunette--I should say she was what you might

term an écru shade. I knew her pretty well. I told her about my friend

Wainwright. She gave me a double handful of bark--calisaya, I think it

was--and some more herbs that I was to mix with it, and told me what

to do. I was to make tea of it and give it to him, and keep him from

rum for a certain time. And for two weeks I did it. You know, I liked

Wainwright. Both of us was broke; but Timotea sent us goat-meat and

plantains and tortillas every day; and at last I got the curse of drink

lifted from Clifford Wainwright. He lost his taste for it. And in the

cool of the evening him and me would sit on the roof of Timotea's

mother's hut, eating harmless truck like coffee and rice and stewed

crabs, and playing the accordion.

"About that time President Gomez found out that the advice of C.

Wainwright was the stuff he had been looking for. The country was

pulling out of debt, and the treasury had enough boodle in it for him

to amuse himself occasionally with the night-latch. The people were

beginning to take their two-hour siestas again every day--which was the

surest sign of prosperity.

"So down from the regular capital he sends for Clifford Wainwright and

makes him his private secretary at twenty thousand Peru dollars a year.

Yes, sir--so much. Wainwright was on the water-wagon--thanks to me and

Timotea--and he was soon in clover with the government gang. Don't

forget what done it--calisaya bark with them other herbs mixed--make a

tea of it, and give a cupful every two hours. Try it yourself. It takes

away the desire.

"As I said, a man can do a lot more for another party than he can for

himself. Wainwright, with his brains, got a whole country out of trouble

and on its feet; but what could he do for himself? And without any

special brains, but with some nerve and common sense, I put him on his

feet because I never had the weakness that he did--nothing but a cigar

for mine, thanks. And--"

Trotter paused. I looked at his tattered clothes and at his deeply

sunburnt, hard, thoughtful face.

"Didn't Cartright ever offer to do anything for you?" I asked.

"Wainwright," corrected Trotter. "Yes, he offered me some pretty good

jobs. But I'd have had to leave Aguas Frescas; so I didn't take any of

'em up. Say, I didn't tell you much about that girl--Timotea. We rather

hit it off together. She was as good as you find 'em anywhere--Spanish,

mostly, with just a twist of lemon-peel on top. What if they did live in

a grass hut and went bare-armed?

"A month ago," went on Trotter, "she went away. I don't know where to.

But--"

"You'd better come back to the States," I insisted. "I can promise you

positively that my brother will give you a position in cotton, sugar, or

sheetings--I am not certain which."

"I think she went back with her mother," said Trotter, "to the village

in the mountains that they come from. Tell me, what would this job you

speak of pay?"

"Why," said I, hesitating over commerce, "I should say fifty or a

hundred dollars a month--maybe two hundred."

"Ain't it funny," said Trotter, digging his toes in the sand, "what a

chump a man is when it comes to paddling his own canoe? I don't know. Of

course, I'm not making a living here. I'm on the bum. But--well, I wish

you could have seen that Timotea. Every man has his own weak spot."

The gig from the _Andador_ was coming ashore to take out the captain,

purser, and myself, the lone passenger.

"I'll guarantee," said I confidently, "that my brother will pay you

seventy-five dollars a month."

"All right, then," said William Trotter. "I'll--"

But a soft voice called across the blazing sands. A girl, faintly

lemon-tinted, stood in the Calle Real and called. She was

bare-armed--but what of that?

"It's her!" said William Trotter, looking. "She's come back! I'm

obliged; but I can't take the job. Thanks, just the same. Ain't it funny

how we can't do nothing for ourselves, but we can do wonders for the

other fellow? You was about to get me with your financial proposition;

but we've all got our weak points. Timotea's mine. And, say!" Trotter

had turned to leave, but he retraced the step or two that he had taken.

"I like to have left you without saying good-bye," said he. "It kind of

rattles you when they go away unexpected for a month and come back the

same way. Shake hands. So long! Say, do you remember them gunshots we

heard a while ago up at the cuartel? Well, I knew what they was, but I

didn't mention it. It was Clifford Wainwright being shot by a squad of

soldiers against a stone wall for giving away secrets of state to that

Nicamala republic. Oh, yes, it was rum that did it. He backslided and

got his. I guess we all have our weak points, and can't do much toward

helping ourselves. Mine's waiting for me. I'd have liked to have that

job with your brother, but--we've all got our weak points. So long!"

IV

A big black Carib carried me on his back through the surf to the ship's

boat. On the way the purser handed me a letter that he had brought for

me at the last moment from the post-office in Aguas Frescas. It was from

my brother. He requested me to meet him at the St. Charles Hotel in New

Orleans and accept a position with his house--in either cotton, sugar,

or sheetings, and with five thousand dollars a year as my salary.

When I arrived at the Crescent City I hurried away--far away from the

St. Charles to a dim _chambre garnie_ in Bienville Street. And there,

looking down from my attic window from time to time at the old, yellow,

absinthe house across the street, I wrote this story to buy my bread and

butter.

"Can thim that helps others help thimselves?"

[Illustration: "Can the horse run?" (cartoon from _The Rolling Stone_)]

THE MARIONETTES

[Originally published in _The Black Cat_ for April, 1902,

The Short Story Publishing Co.]

The policeman was standing at the corner of Twenty-fourth Street and a

prodigiously dark alley near where the elevated railroad crosses the

street. The time was two o'clock in the morning; the outlook a stretch

of cold, drizzling, unsociable blackness until the dawn.

A man, wearing a long overcoat, with his hat tilted down in front, and

carrying something in one hand, walked softly but rapidly out of the

black alley. The policeman accosted him civilly, but with the assured

air that is linked with conscious authority. The hour, the alley's musty

reputation, the pedestrian's haste, the burden he carried--these easily

combined into the "suspicious circumstances" that required illumination

at the officer's hands.

The "suspect" halted readily and tilted back his hat, exposing, in the

flicker of the electric lights, an emotionless, smooth countenance with

a rather long nose and steady dark eyes. Thrusting his gloved hand into

a side pocket of his overcoat, he drew out a card and handed it to the

policeman. Holding it to catch the uncertain light, the officer read the

name "Charles Spencer James, M. D." The street and number of the address

were of a neighborhood so solid and respectable as to subdue even

curiosity. The policeman's downward glance at the article carried in the

doctor's hand--a handsome medicine case of black leather, with small

silver mountings--further endorsed the guarantee of the card.

"All right, doctor," said the officer, stepping aside, with an air of

bulky affability. "Orders are to be extra careful. Good many burglars

and hold-ups lately. Bad night to be out. Not so cold, but--clammy."

With a formal inclination of his head, and a word or two corroborative

of the officer's estimate of the weather, Doctor James continued his

somewhat rapid progress. Three times that night had a patrolman accepted

his professional card and the sight of his paragon of a medicine case

as vouchers for his honesty of person and purpose. Had any one of those

officers seen fit, on the morrow, to test the evidence of that card

he would have found it borne out by the doctor's name on a handsome

doorplate, his presence, calm and well dressed, in his well-equipped

office--provided it were not too early, Doctor James being a late

riser--and the testimony of the neighborhood to his good citizenship,

his devotion to his family, and his success as a practitioner the two

years he had lived among them.

Therefore, it would have much surprised any one of those zealous

guardians of the peace could they have taken a peep into that immaculate

medicine case. Upon opening it, the first article to be seen would have

been an elegant set of the latest conceived tools used by the "box

man," as the ingenious safe burglar now denominates himself. Specially

designed and constructed were the implements--the short but powerful

"jimmy," the collection of curiously fashioned keys, the blued drills

and punches of the finest temper--capable of eating their way into

chilled steel as a mouse eats into a cheese, and the clamps that fasten

like a leech to the polished door of a safe and pull out the combination

knob as a dentist extracts a tooth. In a little pouch in the inner side

of the "medicine" case was a four-ounce vial of nitroglycerine, now half

empty. Underneath the tools was a mass of crumpled banknotes and a few

handfuls of gold coin, the money, altogether, amounting to eight hundred

and thirty dollars.

To a very limited circle of friends Doctor James was known as "The Swell

'Greek.'" Half of the mysterious term was a tribute to his cool and

gentlemanlike manners; the other half denoted, in the argot of the

brotherhood, the leader, the planner, the one who, by the power and

prestige of his address and position, secured the information upon which

they based their plans and desperate enterprises.

Of this elect circle the other members were Skitsie Morgan and Gum

Decker, expert "box men," and Leopold Pretzfelder, a jeweller downtown,

who manipulated the "sparklers" and other ornaments collected by the

working trio. All good and loyal men, as loose-tongued as Memnon and as

fickle as the North Star.

That night's work had not been considered by the firm to have yielded

more than a moderate repayal for their pains. An old-style two-story

side-bolt safe in the dingy office of a very wealthy old-style dry-goods

firm on a Saturday night should have excreted more than twenty-five

hundred dollars. But that was all they found, and they had divided

it, the three of them, into equal shares upon the spot, as was their

custom. Ten or twelve thousand was what they expected. But one of the

proprietors had proved to be just a trifle too old-style. Just after

dark he had carried home in a shirt box most of the funds on hand.

Doctor James proceeded up Twenty-fourth Street, which was, to all

appearance, depopulated. Even the theatrical folk, who affect this

district as a place of residence, were long since abed. The drizzle had

accumulated upon the street; puddles of it among the stones received the

fire of the arc lights, and returned it, shattered into a myriad liquid

spangles. A captious wind, shower-soaked and chilling, coughed from the

laryngeal flues between the houses.

As the practitioner's foot struck even with the corner of a tall brick

residence of more pretension than its fellows the front door popped

open, and a bawling negress clattered down the steps to the pavement.

Some medley of words came from her mouth, addressed, like as not, to

herself--the recourse of her race when alone and beset by evil. She

looked to be one of that old vassal class of the South--voluble,

familiar, loyal, irrepressible; her person pictured it--fat, neat,

aproned, kerchiefed.

This sudden apparition, spewed from the silent house, reached the bottom

of the steps as Doctor James came opposite. Her brain transferring

its energies from sound to sight, she ceased her clamor and fixed her

pop-eyes upon the case the doctor carried.

"Bress de Lawd!" was the benison the sight drew from her. "Is you a

doctor, suh?"

"Yes, I am a physician," said Doctor James, pausing.

"Den fo' God's sake come and see Mister Chandler, suh. He done had a fit

or sump'n. He layin' jist like he wuz dead. Miss Amy sont me to git a

doctor. Lawd knows whar old Cindy'd a skeared one up from, if you, suh,

hadn't come along. Ef old Mars' knowed one ten-hundredth part of dese

doin's dey'd be shootin' gwine on, suh--pistol shootin'--leb'm feet

marked off on de ground, and ev'ybody a-duellin'. And dat po' lamb, Miss

Amy--"

"Lead the way," said Doctor James, setting his foot upon the step, "if

you want me as a doctor. As an auditor I'm not open to engagements."

The negress preceded him into the house and up a flight of thickly

carpeted stairs. Twice they came to dimly lighted branching hallways. At

the second one the now panting conductress turned down a hall, stopping

at a door and opening it.

"I done brought de doctor, Miss Amy."

Doctor James entered the room, and bowed slightly to a young lady

standing by the side of a bed. He set his medicine case upon a chair,

removed his overcoat, throwing it over the case and the back of the

chair, and advanced with quiet self-possession to the bedside.

There lay a man, sprawling as he had fallen--a man dressed richly in the

prevailing mode, with only his shoe removed; lying relaxed, and as still

as the dead.

There emanated from Doctor James an aura of calm force and reserve

strength that was as manna in the desert to the weak and desolate among

his patrons. Always had women, especially, been attracted by something

in his sick-room manner. It was not the indulgent suavity of the

fashionable healer, but a manner of poise, of sureness, of ability to

overcome fate, of deference and protection and devotion. There was an

exploring magnetism in his steadfast, luminous brown eves; a latent

authority in the impassive, even priestly, tranquillity of his smooth

countenance that outwardly fitted him for the part of confidant and

consoler. Sometimes, at his first professional visit, women would tell

him where they hid their diamonds at night from the burglars.

With the ease of much practice, Doctor James's unroving eyes estimated

the order and quality of the room's furnishings. The appointments were

rich and costly. The same glance had secured cognizance of the lady's

appearance. She was small and scarcely past twenty. Her face possessed

the title to a winsome prettiness, now obscured by (you would say)

rather a fixed melancholy than the more violent imprint of a sudden

sorrow. Upon her forehead, above one eyebrow, was a livid bruise,

suffered, the physician's eye told him, within the past six hours.

Doctor James's fingers went to the man's wrist. His almost vocal eyes

questioned the lady.

"I am Mrs. Chandler," she responded, speaking with the plaintive

Southern slur and intonation. "My husband was taken suddenly ill about

ten minutes before you came. He has had attacks of heart trouble

before--some of them were very bad." His clothed state and the late hour

seemed to prompt her to further explanation. "He had been out late;

to--a supper, I believe."

Doctor James now turned his attention to his patient. In whichever of

his "professions" he happened to be engaged he was wont to honor the

"case" or the "job" with his whole interest.

The sick man appeared to be about thirty. His countenance bore a look of

boldness and dissipation, but was not without a symmetry of feature and

the fine lines drawn by a taste and indulgence in humor that gave the

redeeming touch. There was an odor of spilled wine about his clothes.

The physician laid back his outer garments, and then, with a penknife,

slit the shirt-front from collar to waist. The obstacles cleared, he

laid his ear to the heart and listened intently.

"Mitral regurgitation?" he said, softly, when he rose. The words ended

with the rising inflection of uncertainty. Again he listened long; and

this time he said, "Mitral insufficiency," with the accent of an assured

diagnosis.

"Madam," he began, in the reassuring tones that had so often allayed

anxiety, "there is a probability--" As he slowly turned his head to face

the lady, he saw her fall, white and swooning, into the arms of the old

negress.

"Po' lamb! po' lamb! Has dey done killed Aunt Cindy's own blessed child?

May de Lawd' stroy wid his wrath dem what stole her away; what break dat

angel heart; what left--"

"Lift her feet," said Doctor James, assisting to support the drooping

form. "Where is her room? She must be put to bed."

"In here, suh." The woman nodded her kerchiefed head toward a door.

"Dat's Miss Amy's room."

They carried her in there, and laid her on the bed. Her pulse was faint,

but regular. She passed from the swoon, without recovering

consciousness, into a profound slumber.

"She is quite exhausted," said the physician. "Sleep is a good remedy.

When she wakes, give her a toddy--with an egg in it, if she can take it.

How did she get that bruise upon her forehead?"

"She done got a lick there, suh. De po' lamb fell--No, suh"--the old

woman's racial mutability swept her into a sudden flare of indignation

--"old Cindy ain't gwineter lie for dat debble. He done it, suh. May

de Lawd wither de hand what--dar now! Cindy promise her sweet lamb she

ain't gwine tell. Miss Amy got hurt, suh, on de head."

Doctor James stepped to a stand where a handsome lamp burned, and turned

the flame low.

"Stay here with your mistress," he ordered, "and keep quiet so she will

sleep. If she wakes, give her the toddy. If she grows any weaker, let me

know. There is something strange about it."

"Dar's mo' strange t'ings dan dat 'round here," began the negress, but

the physician hushed her in a seldom employed peremptory, concentrated

voice with which he had often allayed hysteria itself. He returned to

the other room, closing the door softly behind him. The man on the bed

had not moved, but his eyes were open. His lips seemed to form words.

Doctor James bent his head to listen. "The money! the money!" was what

they were whispering.

"Can you understand what I say?" asked the doctor, speaking low, but

distinctly.

The head nodded slightly.

"I am a physician, sent for by your wife. You are Mr. Chandler, I am

told. You are quite ill. You must not excite or distress yourself at

all."

The patient's eyes seemed to beckon to him. The doctor stooped to catch

the same faint words.

"The money--the twenty thousand dollars."

"Where is this money?--in the bank?"

The eyes expressed a negative. "Tell her"--the whisper was growing

fainter--"the twenty thousand dollars--her money"--his eyes wandered

about the room.

"You have placed this money somewhere?"--Doctor James's voice was

toiling like a siren's to conjure the secret from the man's failing

intelligence--"Is it in this room?"

He thought he saw a fluttering assent in the dimming eyes. The pulse

under his fingers was as fine and small as a silk thread.

There arose in Doctor James's brain and heart the instincts of his other

profession. Promptly, as he acted in everything, he decided to learn the

whereabouts of this money, and at the calculated and certain cost of a

human life.

Drawing from his pocket a little pad of prescription blanks, he

scribbled upon one of them a formula suited, according to the best

practice, to the needs of the sufferer. Going to the door of the inner

room, he softly called the old woman, gave her the prescription, and

bade her take it to some drug store and fetch the medicine.

When she had gone, muttering to herself, the doctor stepped to the

bedside of the lady. She still slept soundly; her pulse was a little

stronger; her forehead was cool, save where the inflammation of the

bruise extended, and a slight moisture covered it. Unless disturbed, she

would yet sleep for hours. He found the key in the door, and locked it

after him when he returned.

Doctor James looked at his watch. He could call half an hour his own,

since before that time the old woman could scarcely return from her

mission. Then he sought and found water in a pitcher and a glass

tumbler. Opening his medicine case he took out the vial containing the

nitroglycerine--"the oil," as his brethren of the brace-and-bit term it.

One drop of the faint yellow, thickish liquid he let fall in the

tumbler. He took out his silver hypodermic syringe case, and screwed

the needle into its place, Carefully measuring each modicum of water in

the graduated glass barrel of the syringe, he diluted the one drop with

nearly half a tumbler of water.

Two hours earlier that night Doctor James had, with that syringe,

injected the undiluted liquid into a hole drilled in the lock of a

safe, and had destroyed, with one dull explosion, the machinery that

controlled the movement of the bolts. He now purposed, with the same

means, to shiver the prime machinery of a human being--to rend its

heart--and each shock was for the sake of the money to follow.

The same means, but in a different guise. Whereas, that was the giant in

its rude, primary dynamic strength, this was the courtier, whose no less

deadly arms were concealed by velvet and lace. For the liquid in the

tumbler and in the syringe that the physician carefully filled was now a

solution of glonoin, the most powerful heart stimulant known to medical

science. Two ounces had riven the solid door of the iron safe; with one

fiftieth part of a minim he was now about to still forever the intricate

mechanism of a human life.

But not immediately. It was not so intended. First there would be a

quick increase of vitality; a powerful impetus given to every organ and

faculty. The heart would respond bravely to the fatal spur; the blood in

the veins return more rapidly to its source.

But, as Doctor James well knew, over-stimulation in this form of heart

disease means death, as sure as by a rifle shot. When the clogged

arteries should suffer congestion from the increased flow of blood

pumped into them by the power of the burglar's "oil," they would rapidly

become "no thoroughfare," and the fountain of life would cease to flow.

The physician bared the chest of the unconscious Chandler. Easily and

skilfully he injected, subcutaneously, the contents of the syringe into

the muscles of the region over the heart. True to his neat habits in

both professions, he next carefully dried his needle and re-inserted the

fine wire that threaded it when not in use.

In three minutes Chandler opened his eyes, and spoke, in a voice faint

but audible, inquiring who attended upon him. Doctor James again

explained his presence there.

"Where is my wife?" asked the patient.

"She is asleep--from exhaustion and worry," said the doctor. "I would

not awaken her, unless--"

"It isn't--necessary." Chandler spoke with spaces between his words

caused by his short breath that some demon was driving too fast. "She

wouldn't--thank you to disturb her--on my--account."

Doctor James drew a chair to the bedside. Conversation must not be

squandered.

"A few minutes ago," he began, in the grave, candid tones of his other

profession, "you were trying to tell me something regarding some

money. I do not seek your confidence, but it is my duty to advise

you that anxiety and worry will work against your recovery. If you

have any communication to make about this--to relieve your mind about

this--twenty thousand dollars, I think was the amount you mentioned--you

would better do so."

Chandler could not turn his head, but he rolled his eyes in the

direction of the speaker.

"Did I--say where this--money is?"

"No," answered the physician. "I only inferred, from your scarcely

intelligible words, that you felt a solicitude concerning its safety.

If it is in this room--"

Doctor James paused. Did he only seem to perceive a flicker of

understanding, a gleam of suspicion upon the ironical features of his

patient? Had he seemed too eager? Had he said too much? Chandler's next

words restored his confidence.

"Where--should it be," he gasped, "but in--the safe--there?"

With his eyes he indicated a corner of the room, where now, for the

first time, the doctor perceived a small iron safe, half-concealed by

the trailing end of a window curtain.

Rising, he took the sick man's wrist. His pulse was beating in great

throbs, with ominous intervals between.

"Lift your arm," said Doctor James.

"You know--I can't move, Doctor."

The physician stepped swiftly to the hall door, opened it, and listened.

All was still. Without further circumvention he went to the safe, and

examined it. Of a primitive make and simple design, it afforded little

more security than protection against light-fingered servants. To his

skill it was a mere toy, a thing of straw and paste-board. The money was

as good as in his hands. With his clamps he could draw the knob, punch

the tumblers and open the door in two minutes. Perhaps, in another way,

he might open it in one.

Kneeling upon the floor, he laid his ear to the combination plate, and

slowly turned the knob. As he had surmised, it was locked at only a "day

com."--upon one number. His keen ear caught the faint warning click as

the tumbler was disturbed; he used the clue--the handle turned. He swung

the door wide open.

The interior of the safe was bare--not even a scrap of paper rested

within the hollow iron cube.

Doctor James rose to his feet and walked back to the bed.

A thick dew had formed upon the dying man's brow, but there was a

mocking, grim smile on his lips and in his eyes.

"I never--saw it before," he said, painfully, "medicine and--burglary

wedded! Do you--make the--combination pay--dear Doctor?"

Than that situation afforded, there was never a more rigorous test of

Doctor James's greatness. Trapped by the diabolic humor of his victim

into a position both ridiculous and unsafe, he maintained his dignity as

well as his presence of mind. Taking out his watch, he waited for the

man to die.

"You were--just a shade--too--anxious--about that money. But it never

was--in any danger--from you, dear Doctor. It's safe. Perfectly safe.

It's all--in the hands--of the bookmakers. Twenty--thousand--Amy's

money. I played it at the races--lost every--cent of it. I've been a

pretty bad boy, Burglar--excuse me--Doctor, but I've been a square

sport. I don't think--I ever met--such an--eighteen-carat rascal as you

are, Doctor--excuse me--Burglar, in all my rounds. Is it contrary--to

the ethics--of your--gang, Burglar, to give a victim--excuse

me--patient, a drink of water?"

Doctor James brought him a drink. He could scarcely swallow it. The

reaction from the powerful drug was coming in regular, intensifying

waves. But his moribund fancy must have one more grating fling.

"Gambler--drunkard--spendthrift--I've been those, but--a

doctor-burglar!"

The physician indulged himself to but one reply to the other's caustic

taunts. Bending low to catch Chandler's fast crystallizing gaze,

he pointed to the sleeping lady's door with a gesture so stern and

significant that the prostrate man half-lifted his head, with his

remaining strength, to see. He saw nothing; but he caught the cold words

of the doctor--the last sounds he was to hear:

"I never yet--struck a woman."

It were vain to attempt to con such men. There is no curriculum that can

reckon with them in its ken. Thev are offshoots from the types whereof

men say, "He will do this," or "He will do that." We only know that they

exist; and that we can observe them, and tell one another of their bare

performances, as children watch and speak of the marionettes.

Yet it were a droll study in egoism to consider these two--one an

assassin and a robber, standing above his victim; the other baser in his

offences, if a lesser law-breaker, lying, abhorred, in the house of the

wife he had persecuted, spoiled, and smitten, one a tiger, the other

a dog-wolf--to consider each of them sickening at the foulness of the

other; and each flourishing out of the mire of his manifest guilt his

own immaculate standard--of conduct, if not of honor.

The one retort of Doctor James must have struck home to the other's

remaining shreds of shame and manhood, for it proved the _coup de

grâce_. A deep blush suffused his face--an ignominious _rosa mortis_;

the respiration ceased, and, with scarcely a tremor, Chandler expired.

Close following upon his last breath came the negress, bringing the

medicine. With a hand gently pressing upon the closed eyelids, Doctor

James told her of the end. Not grief, but a hereditary rapprochement

with death in the abstract, moved her to a dismal, watery snuffling,

accompanied by her usual jeremiad.

"Dar now! It's in de Lawd's hands. He am de jedge ob de transgressor,

and de suppo't of dem in distress. He gwine hab suppo't us now. Cindy

done paid out de last quarter fer dis bottle of physic, and it nebber

come to no use."

"Do I understand," asked Doctor James, "that Mrs. Chandler has no

money?"

"Money, suh? You know what make Miss Amy fall down and so weak?

Stahvation, suh. Nothin' to eat in dis house but some crumbly crackers

in three days. Dat angel sell her finger rings and watch mont's ago.

Dis fine house, suh, wid de red cyarpets and shiny bureaus, it's all

hired; and de man talkin' scan'lous about de rent. Dat debble--'scuse

me, Lawd--he done in Yo' hands fer jedgment, now--he made way wid

everything."

The physician's silence encouraged her to continue. The history that he

gleaned from Cindy's disordered monologue was an old one, of illusion,

wilfulness, disaster, cruelty and pride. Standing out from the blurred

panorama of her gabble were little clear pictures--an ideal home in

the far South; a quickly repented marriage; an unhappy season, full of

wrongs and abuse, and, of late, an inheritance of money that promised

deliverance; its seizure and waste by the dog-wolf during a two

months' absence, and his return in the midst of a scandalous carouse.

Unobtruded, but visible between every line, ran a pure white thread

through the smudged warp of the story--the simple, all-enduring, sublime

love of the old negress, following her mistress unswervingly through

everything to the end.

When at last she paused, the physician spoke, asking if the house

contained whiskey or liquor of any sort. There was, the old woman

informed him, half a bottle of brandy left in the sideboard by the

dog-wolf.

"Prepare a toddy as I told you," said Doctor James. "Wake your mistress;

have her drink it, and tell her what has happened."

Some ten minutes afterward, Mrs. Chandler entered, supported by old

Cindy's arm. She appeared to be a little stronger since her sleep and

the stimulant she had taken. Doctor James had covered, with a sheet, the

form upon the bed.

The lady turned her mournful eyes once, with a half-frightened look,

toward it, and pressed closer to her loyal protector. Her eyes were dry

and bright. Sorrow seemed to have done its utmost with her. The fount of

tears was dried; feeling itself paralyzed.

Doctor James was standing near the table, his overcoat donned, his hat

and medicine case in his hand. His face was calm and impassive--practice

had inured him to the sight of human suffering. His lambent brown eyes

alone expressed a discreet professional sympathy.

He spoke kindly and briefly, stating that, as the hour was late, and

assistance, no doubt, difficult to procure, he would himself send the

proper persons to attend to the necessary finalities.

"One matter, in conclusion," said the doctor, pointing to the safe with

its still wide-open door. "Your husband, Mrs. Chandler, toward the end,

felt that he could not live; and directed me to open that safe, giving

me the number upon which the combination is set. In case you may need

to use it, you will remember that the number is forty-one. Turn several

times to the right; then to the left once; stop at forty-one. He would

not permit me to waken you, though he knew the end was near.

"In that safe he said he had placed a sum of money--not large--but

enough to enable you to carry out his last request. That was that you

should return to your old home, and, in after days, when time shall have

made it easier, forgive his many sins against you."

He pointed to the table, where lay an orderly pile of banknotes,

surmounted by two stacks of gold coins.

"The money is there--as he described it--eight hundred and thirty

dollars. I beg to leave my card with you, in case I can be of any

service later on."

So, he had thought of her--and kindly--at the last! So late! And yet the

lie fanned into life one last spark of tenderness where she had thought

all was turned to ashes and dust. She cried aloud "Rob! Rob!" She

turned, and, upon the ready bosom of her true servitor, diluted her

grief in relieving tears. It is well to think, also, that in the years

to follow, the murderer's falsehood shone like a little star above the

grave of love, comforting her, and gaining the forgiveness that is good

in itself, whether asked for or no.

Hushed and soothed upon the dark bosom, like a child, by a crooning,

babbling sympathy, at last she raised her head--but the doctor was gone.

[Illustration: "Will you go in?" (cartoon from _The Rolling Stone_)]

THE MARQUIS AND MISS SALLY

[Originally published in _Everybody's Magazine_, June, 1903.]

Without knowing it, Old Bill Bascom had the honor of being overtaken by

fate the same day with the Marquis of Borodale.

The Marquis lived in Regent Square, London. Old Bill lived on Limping

Doe Creek, Hardeman County, Texas. The cataclysm that engulfed the

Marquis took the form of a bursting bubble known as the Central and

South American Mahogany and Caoutchouc Monopoly. Old Bill's Nemesis was

in the no less perilous shape of a band of civilized Indian cattle

thieves from the Territory who ran off his entire herd of four hundred

head, and shot old Bill dead as he trailed after them. To even up the

consequences of the two catastrophes, the Marquis, as soon as he found

that all he possessed would pay only fifteen shillings on the pound of

his indebtedness, shot himself.

Old Bill left a family of six motherless sons and daughters, who found

themselves without even a red steer left to eat, or a red cent to buy

one with.

The Marquis left one son, a young man, who had come to the States and

established a large and well-stocked ranch in the Panhandle of Texas.

When this young man learned the news he mounted his pony and rode to

town. There he placed everything he owned except his horse, saddle,

Winchester, and fifteen dollars in his pockets, in the hands of his

lawyers, with instructions to sell and forward the proceeds to London to

be applied upon the payment of his father's debts. Then he mounted his

pony and rode southward.

One day, arriving about the same time, but by different trails, two

young chaps rode up to the Diamond-Cross ranch, on the Little Piedra,

and asked for work. Both were dressed neatly and sprucely in cowboy

costume. One was a straight-set fellow, with delicate, handsome

features, short, brown hair, and smooth face, sunburned to a golden

brown. The other applicant was stouter and broad-shouldered, with fresh,

red complexion, somewhat freckled, reddish, curling hair, and a rather

plain face, made attractive by laughing eyes and a pleasant mouth.

The superintendent of the Diamond-Cross was of the opinion that he could

give them work. In fact, word had reached him that morning that the camp

cook--a most important member of the outfit--had straddled his broncho

and departed, being unable to withstand the fire of fun and practical

jokes of which he was, ex officio, the legitimate target.

"Can either of you cook?" asked the superintendent.

"I can," said the reddish-haired fellow, promptly. "I've cooked in camp

quite a lot. I'm willing to take the job until you've got something else

to offer."

"Now, that's the way I like to hear a man talk," said the

superintendent, approvingly. "I'll give you a note to Saunders, and

he'll put you to work."

Thus the names of John Bascom and Charles Norwood were added to the

pay-roll of the Diamond-Cross. The two left for the round-up camp

immediately after dinner. Their directions were simple, but sufficient:

"Keep down the arroyo for fifteen miles till you get there." Both being

strangers from afar, young, spirited, and thus thrown together by chance

for a long ride, it is likely that the comradeship that afterward

existed so strongly between them began that afternoon as they meandered

along the little valley of the Canada Verda.

They reached their destination just after sunset. The main camp of the

round-up was comfortably located on the bank of a long water-hole, under

a fine mott of timber. A number of small A tents pitched upon grassy

spots and the big wall tent for provisions showed that the camp was

intended to be occupied for a considerable length of time.

The round-up had ridden in but a few moments before, hungry and tired,

to a supperless camp. The boys were engaged in an emulous display of

anathemas supposed to fit the case of the absconding cook. While they

were unsaddling and hobbling their ponies, the newcomer rode in and

inquired for Pink Saunders. The boss ol the round-up came forth and was

given the superintendent's note.

Pink Saunders, though a boss during working hours, was a humorist in

camp, where everybody, from cook to superintendent, is equal. After

reading the note he waved his hand toward the camp and shouted,

ceremoniously, at the top of his voice, "Gentlemen, allow me to present

to you the Marquis and Miss Sally."

At the words both the new arrivals betray confusion. The newly employed

cook started, with a surprised look on his face, but, immediately

recollecting that "Miss Sally" is the generic name for the male cook in

every west Texas cow camp, he recovered his composure with a grin at his

own expense.

His companion showed little less discomposure, even turning angrily,

with a bitten lip, and reaching for his saddle pommel, as if to remount

his pony; but "Miss Sally" touched his arm and said, laughingly, "Come

now. Marquis; that was quite a compliment from Saunders. It's that

distinguished air of yours and aristocratic nose that made him call you

that."

He began to unsaddle, and the Marquis, restored to equanimity, followed

his example. Rolling up his sleeves, Miss Sally sprang for the grub

wagon, shouting: "I'm the new cook b'thunder! Some of you chaps rustle a

little wood for a fire, and I'll guarantee you a hot square meal inside

of thirty minutes." Miss Sally's energy and good-humor, as he ransacked

the grub wagon for coffee, flour, and bacon, won the good opinion of the

camp instantly.

And also, in days following, the Marquis, after becoming better

acquainted, proved to be a cheerful, pleasant fellow, always a little

reserved, and taking no part in the rough camp frolics; but the boys

gradually came to respect this reserve--which fitted the title Saunders

had given him--and even to like him for it. Saunders had assigned him to

a place holding the herd during the cuttings. He proved to be a skilful

rider and as good with the lariat or in the branding pen as most of

them.

The Marquis and Miss Sally grew to be quite close comrades. After supper

was over, and everything cleaned up, you would generally find them

together, Miss Sally smoking his brier-root pipe, and the Marquis

plaiting a quirt or scraping rawhide for a new pair of hobbles.

The superintendent did not forget his promise to keep an eye on the

cook. Several times, when visiting the camp, he held long talks with

him. He seemed to have taken a fancy to Miss Sally. One afternoon he

rode up, on his way back to the ranch from a tour of the camps, and said

to him:

"There'll be a man here in the morning to take your place. As soon as he

shows up you come to the ranch. I want you to take charge of the ranch

accounts and correspondence. I want somebody that I can depend upon to

keep things straight when I'm away. The wages'll be all right. The

Diamond-Cross'll hold its end up with a man who'll look after its

interests."

"All right," said Miss Sally, as quietly as if he had expected the

notice all along. "Any objections to my bringing my wife down to the

ranch?"

"You married?" said the superintendent, frowning a little. "You didn't

mention it when we were talking."

"Because I'm not," said the cook. "But I'd like to be. Thought I'd wait

till I got a job under roof. I couldn't ask her to live in a cow camp."

"Right," agreed the superintendent. "A camp isn't quite the place for a

married man--but--well, there's plenty of room at the house, and if you

suit us as well as I think you will you can afford it. You write to her

to come on."

"All right," said Miss Sally again, "I'll ride in as soon as I am

relieved to-morrow."

It was a rather chilly night, and after supper the cow-punchers were

lounging about a big fire of dried mesquite chunks.

Their usual exchange of jokes and repartee had dwindled almost to

silence, but silence in a cow camp generally betokens the brewing of

mischief.

Miss Sally and the Marquis were seated upon a log, discussing the

relative merits of the lengthened or shortened stirrup in long-distance

riding. The Marquis arose presently and went to a tree near by to

examine some strips of rawhide he was seasoning for making a lariat.

Just as he left a little puff of wind blew some scraps of tobacco from a

cigarette that Dry-Creek Smithers was rolling, into Miss Sally's eyes.

While the cook was rubbing at them, with tears flowing, "Phonograph"

Davis--so called on account of his strident voice--arose and began a

speech.

"Fellers and citizens! I desire to perpound a interrogatory. What is the

most grievous spectacle what the human mind can contemplate?"

A volley of answers responded to his question.

"A busted flush!"

"A Maverick when you ain't got your branding iron!"

"Yourself!"

"The hole in the end of some other feller's gun!"

"Shet up, you ignoramuses," said old Taller, the fat cow-puncher. "Phony

knows what it is. He's waitin' for to tell us."

"No, fellers and citizens," continued Phonograph. "Them spectacles

you've e-numerated air shore grievious, and way up yonder close to the

so-lution, but they ain't it. The most grievious spectacle air that"--he

pointed to Miss Sally, who was still rubbing his streaming eyes--"a

trustin' and a in-veegled female a-weepin' tears on account of her heart

bein' busted by a false deceiver. Air we men or air we catamounts to

gaze upon the blightin' of our Miss Sally's affections by a

a-risto-crat, which has come among us with his superior beauty and his

glitterin' title to give the weeps to the lovely critter we air bound to

pertect? Air we goin' to act like men, or air we goin' to keep on eaten'

soggy chuck from her cryin' so plentiful over the bread-pan?"

"It's a gallopin' shame," said Dry-Creek, with a sniffle. "It ain't

human. I've noticed the varmint a-palaverin' round her frequent. And him

a Marquis! Ain't that a title, Phony?"

"It's somethin' like a king," the Brushy Creek Kid hastened to explain,

"only lower in the deck. Guess it comes in between the Jack and the

ten-spot."

"Don't miscontruct me," went on Phonograph, "as undervaluatin' the

a-ristocrats. Some of 'em air proper people and can travel right along

with the Watson boys. I've herded some with 'em myself. I've viewed the

elephant with the Mayor of Fort Worth, and I've listened to the owl with

the gen'ral passenger agent of the Katy, and they can keep up with the

percession from where you laid the chunk. But when a Marquis monkeys

with the innocent affections of a cook-lady, may I inquire what the case

seems to call for?"

"The leathers," shouted Dry-Creek Smithers.

"You hearn 'er, Charity!" was the Kid's form of corroboration.

"We've got your company," assented the cow-punchers, in chorus.

Before the Marquis realized their intention, two of them seized him by

each arm and led him up to the log. Phonograph Davis, self-appointed to

carry out the sentence, stood ready, with a pair of stout leather

leggings in his hands.

It was the first time they had ever laid hands on the Marquis during

their somewhat rude sports.

"What are you up to?" he asked, indignantly, with flashing eyes.

"Go easy, Marquis," whispered Rube Fellows, one of the boys that held

him. "It's all in fun. Take it good-natured and they'll let you off

light. They're only goin' to stretch you over the log and tan you eight

or ten times with the leggin's. 'Twon't hurt much."

The Marquis, with an exclamation of anger, his white teeth gleaming,

suddenly exhibited a surprising strength. He wrenched with his arms so

violently that the four men were swayed and dragged many yards from the

log. A cry of anger escaped him, and then Miss Sally, his eyes cleared

of the tobacco, saw, and he immediately mixed with the struggling group.

But at that moment a loud "Hallo!" rang in their ears, and a buckboard

drawn by a team of galloping mustangs spun into the campfire's circle of

light. Every man turned to look, and what they saw drove from their

minds all thoughts of carrying out Phonograph Davis's rather time-worn

contribution to the evening's amusement. Bigger game than the Marquis

was at hand, and his captors released him and stood staring at the

approaching victim.

The buckboard and team belonged to Sam Holly, a cattleman from the Big

Muddy. Sam was driving, and with him was a stout, smooth-faced man,

wearing a frock coat and a high silk hat. That was the county judge, Mr.

Dave Hackett, candidate for reëlection. Sam was escorting him about the

county, among the camps, to shake up the sovereign voters.

The men got out, hitched the team to a mesquite, and walked toward the

fire.

Instantly every man in camp, except the Marquis, Miss Sally, and Pink

Saunders, who had to play host, uttered a frightful yell of assumed

terror and fled on all sides into the darkness.

"Heavens alive!" exclaimed Hackett, "are we as ugly as that? How do you

do, Mr. Saunders? Glad to see you again. What are you doing to my hat,

Holly?"

"I was afraid of this hat," said Sam Holly, meditatively. He had taken

the hat from Hackett's head and was holding it in his hand, looking

dubiously around at the shadows beyond the firelight where now absolute

stillness reigned. "What do you think, Saunders?"

Pink grinned.

"Better elevate it some," he said, in the tone of one giving

disinterested advice. "The light ain't none too good. I wouldn't want it

on my head."

Holly stepped upon the hub of a hind wheel of the grub wagon and hung

the hat upon a limb of a live-oak. Scarcely had his foot touched the

ground when the crash of a dozen six-shooters split the air, and the hat

fell to the ground riddled with bullets.

A hissing noise was heard as if from a score of rattlesnakes, and now

the cow-punchers emerged on all sides from the darkness, stepping high,

with ludicrously exaggerated caution, and "hist"-ing to one another to

observe the utmost prudence in approaching. They formed a solemn, wide

circle about the hat, gazing at it in manifest alarm, and seized every

few moments by little stampedes of panicky flight.

"It's the varmint," said one in awed tones, "that flits up and down in

the low grounds at night, saying, 'Willie-wallo!'"

"It's the venomous Kypootum," proclaimed another. "It stings after it's

dead, and hollers after it's buried."

"It's the chief of the hairy tribe," said Phonograph Davis. "But it's

stone dead, now, boys."

"Don't you believe it," demurred Dry-Creek. "It's only 'possumin'.' It's

the dreaded Highgollacum fantod from the forest. There's only one way to

destroy its life."

He led forward Old Taller, the 240-pound cow-puncher. Old Taller placed

the hat upright on the ground and solemnly sat upon it, crushing it as

flat as a pancake.

Hackett had viewed these proceedings with wide-open eyes. Sam Holly saw

that his anger was rising and said to him:

"Here's where you win or lose, Judge. There are sixty votes on the

Diamond Cross. The boys are trying your mettle. Take it as a joke, and I

don't think you'll regret it." And Hackett saw the point and rose to the

occasion.

Advancing to where the slayers of the wild beast were standing above its

remains and declaring it to be at last defunct, he said, with deep

earnestness:

"Boys, I must thank you for this gallant rescue. While driving through

the arroyo that cruel monster that you have so fearlessly and repeatedly

slaughtered sprang upon us from the tree tops. To you I shall consider

that I owe my life, and also, I hope, reëlection to the office for which

I am again a candidate. Allow me to hand you my card."

The cow-punchers, always so sober-faced while engaged in their

monkey-shines, relaxed into a grin of approval.

But Phonograph Davis, his appetite for fun not yet appeased, had

something more up his sleeve.

"Pardner," he said, addressing Hackett with grave severity, "many a camp

would be down on you for turnin' loose a pernicious varmint like that in

it; but, bein' as we all escaped without loss of life, we'll overlook

it. You can play square with us if you'll do it."

"How's that?" asked Hackett suspiciously.

"You're authorized to perform the sacred rights and lefts of mattermony,

air you not?"

"Well, yes," replied Hackett. "A marriage ceremony conducted by me would

be legal."

"A wrong air to be righted in this here camp," said Phonograph,

virtuously. "A a-ristocrat have slighted a 'umble but beautchoos female

wat's pinin' for his affections. It's the jooty of the camp to drag

forth the haughty descendant of a hundred--or maybe a hundred and

twenty-five--earls, even so at the p'int of a lariat, and jine him to

the weepin' lady. Fellows! roundup Miss Sally and the Marquis; there's

goin' to be a weddin'."

This whim of Phonograph's was received with whoops of appreciation. The

cow-punchers started to apprehend the principals of the proposed

ceremony.

"Kindly prompt me," said Hackett, wiping his forehead, though the night

was cool, "how far this thing is to be carried. And might I expect any

further portions of my raiment to be mistaken for wild animals and

killed?"

"The boys are livelier than usual to-night," said Saunders. "The ones

they are talking about marrying are two of the boys--a herd rider and

the cook. It's another joke. You and Sam will have to sleep here

to-night anyway; p'rhaps you'd better see 'em through with it. Maybe

they'll quiet down after that."

The matchmakers found Miss Sally seated on the tongue of the grub wagon,

calmly smoking his pipe. The Marquis was leaning idly against one of the

trees under which the supply tent was pitched.

Into this tent they were both hustled, and Phonograph, as master of

ceremonies, gave orders for the preparations.

"You, Dry-Creek and Jimmy, and Ben and Taller--hump yourselves to the

wildwood and rustle flowers for the blow-out--mesquite'll do--and get

that Spanish dagger blossom at the corner of the horse corral for the

bride to pack. You, Limpy, get out that red and yaller blanket of your'n

for Miss Sally's skyirt. Marquis, you'll do 'thout fixin'; nobody don't

ever look at the groom."

During their absurd preparation, the two principals were left alone for

a few moments in the tent. The Marquis suddenly showed wild

perturbation.

"This foolishness must not go on," he said, turning to Miss Sally a face

white in the light of the lantern, hanging to the ridge-pole.

"Why not?" said the cook, with an amused smile. "It's fun for the boys;

and they've always let you off pretty light in their frolics. I don't

mind it."

"But you don't understand," persisted the Marquis, pleadingly. "That man

is county judge, and his acts are binding. I can't--oh, you don't

know--"

The cook stepped forward and took the Marquis's hands.

"Sally Bascom," he said, "I KNOW!"

"You know!" faltered the Marquis, trembling. "And you--want to--"

"More than I ever wanted anything. Will you--here come the boys!"

The cow-punchers crowded in, laden with armfuls of decorations.

"Perfifious coyote!" said Phonograph, sternly, addressing the Marquis.

"Air you willing to patch up the damage you've did this ere slab-sided

but trustin' bunch o' calico by single-footin' easy to the altar, or

will we have to rope ye, and drag you thar?"

The Marquis pushed back his hat, and leaned jauntily against some

high-piled sacks of beans. His cheeks were flushed, and his eyes were

shining.

"Go on with the rat killin'," said he.

A little while after a procession approached the tree under which

Hackett, Holly, and Saunders were sitting smoking.

Limpy Walker was in the lead, extracting a doleful tune from his

concertina. Next came the bride and groom. The cook wore the gorgeous

Navajo blanket tied around his waist and carried in one band the

waxen-white Spanish dagger blossom as large as a peck-measure and

weighing fifteen pounds. His hat was ornamented with mesquite branches

and yellow ratama blooms. A resurrected mosquito bar served as a veil.

After them stumbled Phonograph Davis, in the character of the bride's

father, weeping into a saddle blanket with sobs that could be heard a

mile away. The cow-punchers followed by twos, loudly commenting upon the

bride's appearance, in a supposed imitation of the audiences at

fashionable weddings.

Hackett rose as the procession halted before him, and after a little

lecture upon matrimony, asked:

"What are your names?"

"Sally and Charles," answered the cook.

"Join hands, Charles and Sally."

Perhaps there never was a stranger wedding. For, wedding it was, though

only two of those present knew it. When the ceremony was over, the

cow-punchers gave one yell of congratulation and immediately abandoned

their foolery for the night. Blankets were unrolled and sleep became the

paramount question.

The cook (divested of his decorations) and the Marquis lingered for a

moment in the shadow of the grub wagon. The Marquis leaned her head

against his shoulder.

"I didn't know what else to do," she was saying. "Father was gone, and

we kids had to rustle. I had helped him so much with the cattle that I

thought I'd turn cowboy. There wasn't anything else I could make a

living at. I wasn't much stuck on it though, after I got here, and I'd

have left only--"

"Only what?"

"You know. Tell me something. When did you first--what made you--"

"Oh, it was as soon as we struck the camp, when Saunders bawled out 'The

Marquis and Miss Sally!' I saw how rattled you got at the name, and I

had my sus--"

"Cheeky!" whispered the Marquis. "And why should you think that I

thought he was calling me 'Miss Sally'?"

"Because," answered the cook, calmly, "I was the Marquis. My father was

the Marquis of Borodale. But you'll excuse that, won't you, Sally? It

really isn't my fault, you know."

[Illustration: "Here we have Kate and John." (cartoon from _The Rolling

Stone_)]

A FOG IN SANTONE

[Published in _The Cosmopolitan_, October, 1912. Probably

written in 1904, or shortly after O. Henry's first successes

in New York.]

The drug clerk looks sharply at the white face half concealed by the

high-turned overcoat collar.

"I would rather not supply you," he said doubtfully. "I sold you a dozen

morphine tablets less than an hour ago."

The customer smiles wanly. "The fault is in your crooked streets. I

didn't intend to call upon you twice, but I guess I got tangled up.

Excuse me."

He draws his collar higher, and moves out, slowly. He stops under an

electric light at the corner, and juggles absorbedly with three or four

little pasteboard boxes. "Thirty-six," he announces to himself. "More

than plenty." For a gray mist had swept upon Santone that night, an

opaque terror that laid a hand to the throat of each of the city's

guests. It was computed that three thousand invalids were hibernating

in the town. They had come from far and wide, for here, among these

contracted river-sliced streets, the goddess Ozone has elected to

linger.

Purest atmosphere, sir, on earth! You might think from the river

winding through our town that we are malarial, but, no, sir! Repeated

experiments made both by the Government and local experts show that our

air contains nothing deleterious--nothing but ozone, sir, pure ozone.

Litmus paper tests made all along the river show--but you can read it

all in the prospectuses; or the Santonian will recite it for you, word

by word.

We may achieve climate, but weather is thrust upon us. Santone, then,

cannot be blamed for this cold gray fog that came and kissed the lips of

the three thousand, and then delivered them to the cross. That night the

tubercles, whose ravages hope holds in check, multiplied. The writhing

fingers of the pale mist did not go thence bloodless. Many of the wooers

of ozone capitulated with the enemy that night, turning their faces to

the wall in that dumb, isolated apathy that so terrifies their watchers.

On the red stream of Hemorrhagia a few souls drifted away, leaving

behind pathetic heaps, white and chill as the fog itself. Two or three

came to view this atmospheric wraith as the ghost of impossible joys,

sent to whisper to them of the egregious folly it is to inhale breath

into the lungs, only to exhale it again, and these used whatever came

handy to their relief, pistols, gas or the beneficent muriate.

The purchaser of the morphia wanders into the fog, and at length, finds

himself upon a little iron bridge, one of the score or more in the heart

of the city, under which the small tortuous river flows. He leans on

the rail and gasps, for here the mist has concentrated, lying like a

foot-pad to garrote such of the Three Thousand as creep that way. The

iron bridge guys rattle to the strain of his cough, a mocking phthisical

rattle, seeming to say to him: "Clickety-clack! just a little rusty

cold, sir--but not from our river. Litmus paper all along the banks and

nothing but ozone. Clacket-y-clack!"

The Memphis man at last recovers sufficiently to be aware of another

overcoated man ten feet away, leaning on the rail, and just coming out

of a paroxysm. There is a freemasonry among the Three Thousand that

does away with formalities and introductions. A cough is your card; a

hemorrhage a letter of credit. The Memphis man, being nearer recovered,

speaks first.

"Goodall. Memphis--pulmonary tuberculosis--guess last stages." The Three

Thousand economize on words. Words are breath and they need breath to

write checks for the doctors.

"Hurd," gasps the other. "Hurd; of T'leder. T'leder, Ah-hia. Catarrhal

bronkeetis. Name's Dennis, too--doctor says. Says I'll live four weeks

if I--take care of myself. Got your walking papers yet?"

"My doctor," says Goodall of Memphis, a little boastingly, "gives me

three months."

"Oh," remarks the man from Toledo, filling up great gaps in his

conversation with wheezes, "damn the difference. What's months! Expect

to--cut mine down to one week--and die in a hack--a four wheeler, not a

cough. Be considerable moanin' of the bars when I put out to sea. I've

patronized 'em pretty freely since I struck my--present gait. Say,

Goodall of Memphis--if your doctor has set your pegs so close--why don't

you--get on a big spree and go--to the devil quick and easy--like I'm

doing?"

"A spree," says Goodall, as one who entertains a new idea, "I never did

such a thing. I was thinking of another way, but--"

"Come on," invites the Ohioan, "and have some drinks. I've been at

it--for two days, but the inf--ernal stuff won't bite like it used to.

Goodall of Memphis, what's your respiration?"

"Twenty-four."

"Daily--temperature?"

"Hundred and four."

"You can do it in two days. It'll take me a--week. Tank up, friend

Goodall--have all the fun you can; then--off you go, in the middle of

a jag, and s-s-save trouble and expense. I'm a s-son of a gun if this

ain't a health resort--for your whiskers! A Lake Erie fog'd get lost

here in two minutes."

"You said something about a drink," says Goodall.

A few minutes later they line up at a glittering bar, and hang upon the

arm rest. The bartender, blond, heavy, well-groomed, sets out their

drinks, instantly perceiving that he serves two of the Three Thousand.

He observes that one is a middle-aged man, well-dressed, with a lined

and sunken face; the other a mere boy who is chiefly eyes and overcoat.

Disguising well the tedium begotten by many repetitions, the server of

drinks begins to chant the sanitary saga of Santone. "Rather a moist

night, gentlemen, for our town. A little fog from our river, but nothing

to hurt. Repeated Tests."

"Damn your litmus papers," gasps Toledo--"without any--personal offense

intended."

"We've heard of 'em before. Let 'em turn red, white and blue. What we

want is a repeated test of that--whiskey. Come again. I paid for the

last round, Goodall of Memphis."

The bottle oscillates from one to the other, continues to do so, and is

not removed from the counter. The bartender sees two emaciated invalids

dispose of enough Kentucky Belle to floor a dozen cowboys, without

displaying any emotion save a sad and contemplative interest in the

peregrinations of the bottle. So he is moved to manifest a solicitude as

to the consequences.

"Not on your Uncle Mark Hanna," responds Toledo, "will we get drunk.

We've been--vaccinated with whiskey--and--cod liver oil. What would send

you to the police station--only gives us a thirst. S-s-set out another

bottle."

It is slow work trying to meet death by that route. Some quicker way

must be found. They leave the saloon and plunge again into the mist. The

sidewalks are mere flanges at the base of the houses; the street a cold

ravine, the fog filling it like a freshet. Not far away is the Mexican

quarter. Conducted as if by wires along the heavy air comes a guitar's

tinkle, and the demoralizing voice of some señorita singing:

"En las tardes sombrillos del invierro

En el prado a Marar me reclino

Y maldigo mi fausto destino--

Una vida la mas infeliz."

The words of it they do not understand--neither Toledo nor Memphis,

but words are the least important things in life. The music tears the

breasts of the seekers after Nepenthe, inciting Toledo to remark:

"Those kids of mine--I wonder--by God, Mr. Goodall of Memphis, we had

too little of that whiskey! No slow music in mine, if you please. It

makes you disremember to forget."

Hurd of Toledo, here pulls out his watch, and says: "I'm a son of a gun!

Got an engagement for a hack ride out to San Pedro Springs at eleven.

Forgot it. A fellow from Noo York, and me, and the Castillo sisters at

Rhinegelder's Garden. That Noo York chap's a lucky dog--got one whole

lung--good for a year yet. Plenty of money, too. He pays for everything.

I can't afford--to miss the jamboree. Sorry you ain't going along.

Good-by, Goodall of Memphis."

He rounds the corner and shuffles away, casting off thus easily the ties

of acquaintanceship as the moribund do, the season of dissolution being

man's supreme hour of egoism and selfishness. But he turns and calls

back through the fog to the other: "I say, Goodall of Memphis! If you

get there before I do, tell 'em Hurd's a-comin' too. Hurd, of T'leder,

Ah-hia."

Thus Goodall's tempter deserts him. That youth, uncomplaining and

uncaring, takes a spell at coughing, and, recovered, wanders desultorily

on down the street, the name of which he neither knows nor recks. At a

certain point he perceives swinging doors, and hears, filtering between

them a noise of wind and string instruments. Two men enter from the

street as he arrives, and he follows them in. There is a kind of

ante-chamber, plentifully set with palms and cactuses and oleanders. At

little marble-topped tables some people sit, while soft-shod attendants

bring the beer. All is orderly, clean, melancholy, gay, of the German

method of pleasure. At his right is the foot of a stairway. A man there

holds out his hand. Goodall extends his, full of silver, the man selects

therefrom a coin. Goodall goes upstairs and sees there two galleries

extending along the sides of a concert hall which he now perceives to

lie below and beyond the anteroom he first entered. These galleries are

divided into boxes or stalls, which bestow with the aid of hanging lace

curtains, a certain privacy upon their occupants.

Passing with aimless feet down the aisle contiguous to these saucy and

discreet compartments, he is half checked by the sight in one of them of

a young woman, alone and seated in an attitude of reflection. This young

woman becomes aware of his approach. A smile from her brings him to a

standstill, and her subsequent invitation draws him, though hesitating,

to the other chair in the box, a little table between them.

Goodall is only nineteen. There are some whom, when the terrible god

Phthisis wishes to destroy he first makes beautiful; and the boy is

one of these. His face is wax, and an awful pulchritude is born of

the menacing flame in his cheeks. His eyes reflect an unearthly vista

engendered by the certainty of his doom. As it is forbidden man to guess

accurately concerning his fate, it is inevitable that he shall tremble

at the slightest lifting of the veil.

The young woman is well-dressed, and exhibits a beauty of distinctly

feminine and tender sort; an Eve-like comeliness that scarcely seems

predestined to fade.

It is immaterial, the steps by which the two mount to a certain plane of

good understanding; they are short and few, as befits the occasion.

A button against the wall of the partition is frequently disturbed and a

waiter comes and goes at signal.

Pensive beauty would nothing of wine; two thick plaits of her blond hair

hang almost to the floor; she is a lineal descendant of the Lorelei.

So the waiter brings the brew; effervescent, icy, greenish golden. The

orchestra on the stage is playing "Oh, Rachel." The youngsters have

exchanged a good bit of information. She calls him, "Walter" and he

calls her "Miss Rosa."

Goodall's tongue is loosened and he has told her everything about

himself, about his home in Tennessee, the old pillared mansion under

the oaks, the stables, the hunting; the friends he has; down to the

chickens, and the box bushes bordering the walks. About his coming South

for the climate, hoping to escape the hereditary foe of his family. All

about his three months on a ranch; the deer hunts, the rattlers, and the

rollicking in the cow camps. Then of his advent to Santone, where he had

indirectly learned, from a great specialist, that his life's calendar

probably contains but two more leaves. And then of this death-white,

choking night which has come and strangled his fortitude and sent him

out to seek a port amid its depressing billows.

"My weekly letter from home failed to come," he told her, "and I was

pretty blue. I knew I had to go before long and I was tired of waiting.

I went out and bought morphine at every drug store where they would sell

me a few tablets. I got thirty-six quarter grains, and was going back to

my room and take them, but I met a queer fellow on a bridge, who had a

new idea."

Goodall fillips a little pasteboard box upon the table. "I put 'em all

together in there."

Miss Rosa, being a woman, must raise the lid, and gave a slight shiver

at the innocent looking triturates. "Horrid things! but those little,

white bits--they could never kill one!"

Indeed they could. Walter knew better. Nine grains of morphia! Why, half

the amount might.

Miss Rosa demands to know about Mr. Hurd, of Toledo, and is told. She

laughs like a delighted child. "What a funny fellow! But tell me more

about your home and your sisters, Walter. I know enough about Texas and

tarantulas and cowboys."

The theme is dear, just now, to his mood, and he lays before her the

simple details of a true home; the little ties and endearments that so

fill the exile's heart. Of his sisters, one, Alice, furnishes him a

theme he loves to dwell upon.

"She is like you, Miss Rosa," he says. "Maybe not quite so pretty, but,

just as nice, and good, and--"

"There! Walter," says Miss Rosa sharply, "now talk about something

else."

But a shadow falls upon the wall outside, preceding a big, softly

treading man, finely dressed, who pauses a second before the curtains

and then passes on. Presently comes the waiter with a message: "Mr.

Rolfe says--"

"Tell Rolfe I'm engaged."

"I don't know why it is," says Goodall, of Memphis, "but I don't feel as

bad as I did. An hour ago I wanted to die, but since I've met you, Miss

Rosa, I'd like so much to live."

The young woman whirls around the table, lays an arm behind his neck and

kisses him on the cheek.

"You must, dear boy," she says. "I know what was the matter. It was the

miserable foggy weather that has lowered your spirit and mine too--a

little. But look, now."

With a little spring she has drawn back the curtains. A window is in the

wall opposite, and lo! the mist is cleared away. The indulgent moon is

out again, revoyaging the plumbless sky. Roof and parapet and spire are

softly pearl enamelled. Twice, thrice the retrieved river flashes back,

between the houses, the light of the firmament. A tonic day will dawn,

sweet and prosperous.

"Talk of death when the world is so beautiful!" says Miss Rosa, laying

her hand on his shoulder. "Do something to please me, Walter. Go home to

your rest and say: 'I mean to get better,' and do it."

"If you ask it," says the boy, with a smile, "I will."

The waiter brings full glasses. Did they ring? No; but it is well. He

may leave them. A farewell glass. Miss Rosa says: "To your better

health, Walter." He says: "To our next meeting."

His eyes look no longer into the void, but gaze upon the antithesis of

death. His foot is set in an undiscovered country to-night. He is

obedient, ready to go.

"Good night," she says.

"I never kissed a girl before," he confesses, "except my sisters."

"You didn't this time," she laughs, "I kissed you--good night."

"When shall I see you again," he persists.

"You promised me to go home," she frowns, "and get well. Perhaps we

shall meet again soon. Good night."

He hesitates, his hat in hand. She smiles broadly and kisses him once

more upon the forehead. She watches him far down the aisle, then sits

again at the table.

The shadow falls once more against the wall. This time the big, softly

stepping man parts the curtains and looks in. Miss Rosa's eyes meet his

and for half a minute they remain thus, silent, fighting a battle with

that king of weapons. Presently the big man drops the curtains and

passes on.

The orchestra ceases playing suddenly, and an important voice can be

heard loudly talking in one of the boxes farther down the aisle. No

doubt some citizen entertains there some visitor to the town, and Miss

Rosa leans back in her chair and smiles at some of the words she

catches:

"Purest atmosphere--in the world--litmus paper all long--nothing

hurtful--our city--nothing but pure ozone."

The waiter returns for the tray and glasses. As he enters, the girl

crushes a little empty pasteboard box in her hand and throws it in a

corner. She is stirring something in her glass with her hatpin.

"Why, Miss Rosa," says the waiter with the civil familiarity he

uses--"putting salt in your beer this early in the night!"

[Illustration: "Did he go up?" (cartoon from _The Rolling Stone_)]

THE FRIENDLY CALL

[Published in "Monthly Magazine Section," July, 1910.]

When I used to sell hardware in the West, I often "made" a little town

called Saltillo, in Colorado. I was always certain of securing a small

or a large order from Simon Bell, who kept a general store there. Bell

was one of those six-foot, low-voiced products, formed from a union of

the West and the South. I liked him. To look at him you would think he

should be robbing stage coaches or juggling gold mines with both hands;

but he would sell you a paper of tacks or a spool of thread, with ten

times more patience and courtesy than any saleslady in a city department

store.

I had a twofold object in my last visit to Saltillo. One was to sell a

bill of goods; the other to advise Bell of a chance that I knew of by

which I was certain he could make a small fortune.

In Mountain City, a town on the Union Pacific, five times larger than

Saltillo, a mercantile firm was about to go to the wall. It had a

lively and growing custom, but was on the edge of dissolution and ruin.

Mismanagement and the gambling habits of one of the partners explained

it. The condition of the firm was not yet public property. I had my

knowledge of it from a private source. I knew that, if the ready cash

were offered, the stock and good will could be bought for about one

fourth their value.

On arriving in Saltillo I went to Bell's store. He nodded to me, smiled

his broad, lingering smile, went on leisurely selling some candy to a

little girl, then came around the counter and shook hands.

"Well," he said (his invariably preliminary jocosity at every call

I made), "I suppose you are out here making kodak pictures of the

mountains. It's the wrong time of the year to buy any hardware, of

course."

I told Bell about the bargain in Mountain City. If he wanted to take

advantage of it, I would rather have missed a sale than have him

overstocked in Saltillo.

"It sounds good," he said, with enthusiasm. "I'd like to branch out

and do a bigger business, and I'm obliged to you for mentioning it.

But--well, you come and stay at my house to-night and I'll think about

it."

It was then after sundown and time for the larger stores in Saltillo

to close. The clerks in Bell's put away their books, whirled the

combination of the safe, put on their coats and hats and left for their

homes. Bell padlocked the big, double wooden front doors, and we stood,

for a moment, breathing the keen, fresh mountain air coming across the

foothills.

A big man walked down the street and stopped in front of the high porch

of the store. His long, black moustache, black eyebrows, and curly black

hair contrasted queerly with his light, pink complexion, which belonged,

by rights, to a blonde. He was about forty, and wore a white vest,

a white hat, a watch chain made of five-dollar gold pieces linked

together, and a rather well-fitting two-piece gray suit of the cut

that college boys of eighteen are wont to affect. He glanced at me

distrustfully, and then at Bell with coldness and, I thought, something

of enmity in his expression.

"Well," asked Bell, as if he were addressing a stranger, "did you fix up

that matter?"

"Did I!" the man answered, in a resentful tone. "What do you suppose

I've been here two weeks for? The business is to be settled to-night.

Does that suit you, or have you got something to kick about?"

"It's all right," said Bell. "I knew you'd do it."

"Of course, you did," said the magnificent stranger. "Haven't I done it

before?"

"You have," admitted Bell. "And so have I. How do you find it at the

hotel?"

"Rocky grub. But I ain't kicking. Say--can you give me any pointers

about managing that--affair? It's my first deal in that line of

business, you know."

"No, I can't," answered Bell, after some thought. "I've tried all kinds

of ways. You'll have to try some of your own."

"Tried soft soap?"

"Barrels of it."

"Tried a saddle girth with a buckle on the end of it?"

"Never none. Started to once; and here's what I got."

Bill held out his right hand. Even in the deepening twilight, I could

see on the back of it a long, white scar that might have been made by

a claw or a knife or some sharp-edged tool.

"Oh, well," said the florid man, carelessly, "I'll know what to do later

on."

He walked away without another word. When he had gone ten steps he

turned and called to Bell:

"You keep well out of the way when the goods are delivered, so there

won't be any hitch in the business."

"All right," answered Bell, "I'll attend to my end of the line."

This talk was scarcely clear in its meaning to me; but as it did not

concern me, I did not let it weigh upon my mind. But the singularity

of the other man's appearance lingered with me for a while; and as we

walked toward Bell's house I remarked to him:

"Your customer seems to be a surly kind of fellow--not one that you'd

like to be snowed in with in a camp on a hunting trip."

"He is that," assented Bell, heartily. "He reminds me of a rattlesnake

that's been poisoned by the bite of a tarantula."

"He doesn't look like a citizen of Saltillo," I went on.

"No," said Bell, "he lives in Sacramento. He's down here on a little

business trip. His name is George Ringo, and he's been my best

friend--in fact the only friend I ever had--for twenty years."

I was too surprised to make any further comment.

Bell lived in a comfortable, plain, square, two-story white house on the

edge of the little town. I waited in the parlor--a room depressingly

genteel--furnished with red plush, straw matting, looped-up lace

curtains, and a glass case large enough to contain a mummy, full of

mineral specimens.

While I waited, I heard, upstairs, that unmistakable sound instantly

recognized the world over--a bickering woman's voice, rising as her

anger and fury grew. I could hear, between the gusts, the temperate

rumble of Bell's tones, striving to oil the troubled waters.

The storm subsided soon; but not before I had heard the woman say, in

a lower, concentrated tone, rather more carrying than her high-pitched

railings: "This is the last time. I tell you--the last time. Oh, you

WILL understand."

The household seemed to consist of only Bell and his wife and a servant

or two. I was introduced to Mrs. Bell at supper.

At first sight she seemed to be a handsome woman, but I soon perceived

that her charm had been spoiled. An uncontrolled petulance, I

thought, and emotional egotism, an absence of poise and a habitual

dissatisfaction had marred her womanhood. During the meal, she showed

that false gayety, spurious kindliness and reactionary softness that

mark the woman addicted to tantrums. Withal, she was a woman who might

be attractive to many men.

After supper, Bell and I took our chairs outside, set them on the grass

in the moonlight and smoked. The full moon is a witch. In her light,

truthful men dig up for you nuggets of purer gold; while liars squeeze

out brighter colors from the tubes of their invention. I saw Bell's

broad, slow smile come out upon his face and linger there.

"I reckon you think George and me are a funny kind of friends," he said.

"The fact is we never did take much interest in each other's company.

But his idea and mine, of what a friend should be, was always synonymous

and we lived up to it, strict, all these years. Now, I'll give you an

idea of what our idea is.

"A man don't need but one friend. The fellow who drinks your liquor and

hangs around you, slapping you on the back and taking up your time,

telling you how much he likes you, ain't a friend, even if you did play

marbles at school and fish in the same creek with him. As long as you

don't need a friend one of that kind may answer. But a friend, to my

mind, is one you can deal with on a strict reciprocity basis like me and

George have always done.

"A good many years ago, him and me was connected in a number of ways. We

put our capital together and run a line of freight wagons in New Mexico,

and we mined some and gambled a few. And then, we got into trouble of

one or two kinds; and I reckon that got us on a better understandable

basis than anything else did, unless it was the fact that we never had

much personal use for each other's ways. George is the vainest man I

ever see, and the biggest brag. He could blow the biggest geyser in

the Yosemite valley back into its hole with one whisper. I am a quiet

man, and fond of studiousness and thought. The more we used to see

each other, personally, the less we seemed to like to be together. If

he ever had slapped me on the back and snivelled over me like I've

seen men do to what they called their friends, I know I'd have had a

rough-and-tumble with him on the spot. Same way with George. He hated

my ways as bad as I did his. When we were mining, we lived in separate

tents, so as not to intrude our obnoxiousness on each other.

"But after a long time, we begun to know each of us could depend on the

other when we were in a pinch, up to his last dollar, word of honor or

perjury, bullet, or drop of blood we had in the world. We never even

spoke of it to each other, because that would have spoiled it. But we

tried it out, time after time, until we came to know. I've grabbed my

hat and jumped a freight and rode 200 miles to identify him when he was

about to be hung by mistake, in Idaho, for a train robber. Once, I laid

sick of typhoid in a tent in Texas, without a dollar or a change of

clothes, and sent for George in Boise City. He came on the next train.

The first thing he did before speaking to me, was to hang up a little

looking glass on the side of the tent and curl his moustache and rub

some hair dye on his head. His hair is naturally a light reddish. Then

he gave me the most scientific cussing I ever had, and took off his

coat.

"'If you wasn't a Moses-meek little Mary's lamb, you wouldn't have been

took down this way,' says he. 'Haven't you got gumption enough not to

drink swamp water or fall down and scream whenever you have a little

colic or feel a mosquito bite you?' He made me a little mad.

"'You've got the bedside manners of a Piute medicine man,' says I. 'And

I wish you'd go away and let me die a natural death. I'm sorry I sent

for you.'

"'I've a mind to,' says George, 'for nobody cares whether you live or

die. But now I've been tricked into coming, I might as well stay until

this little attack of indigestion or nettle rash or whatever it is,

passes away.'

"Two weeks afterward, when I was beginning to get around again, the

doctor laughed and said he was sure that my friend's keeping me mad all

the time did more than his drugs to cure me.

"So that's the way George and me was friends. There wasn't any sentiment

about it--it was just give and take, and each of us knew that the other

was ready for the call at any time.

"I remember, once, I played a sort of joke on George, just to try him.

I felt a little mean about it afterward, because I never ought to have

doubted he'd do it.

"We was both living in a little town in the San Luis valley, running

some flocks of sheep and a few cattle. We were partners, but, as usual,

we didn't live together. I had an old aunt, out from the East, visiting

for the summer, so I rented a little cottage. She soon had a couple of

cows and some pigs and chickens to make the place look like home. George

lived alone in a little cabin half a mile out of town.

"One day a calf that we had, died. That night I broke its bones, dumped

it into a coarse sack and tied it up with wire. I put on an old shirt,

tore a sleeve 'most out of it, and the collar half off, tangled up my

hair, put some red ink on my hands and spashed some of it over my shirt

and face. I must have looked like I'd been having the fight of my life.

I put the sack in a wagon and drove out to George's cabin. When I

halloed, he came out in a yellow dressing-gown, a Turkish cap and patent

leather shoes. George always was a great dresser.

"I dumped the bundle to the ground.

"Sh-sh!' says I, kind of wild in my way. 'Take that and bury it, George,

out somewhere behind your house--bury it just like it is. And don--'

"'Don't get excited,' says George. 'And for the Lord's sake go and wash

your hands and face and put on a clean shirt.'

"And he lights his pipe, while I drive away at a gallop. The next

morning he drops around to our cottage, where my aunt was fiddling with

her flowers and truck in the front yard. He bends himself and bows and

makes compliments as he could do, when so disposed, and begs a rose bush

from her, saying he had turned up a little land back of his cabin, and

wanted to plant something on it by way of usefulness and ornament. So my

aunt, flattered, pulls up one of her biggest by the roots and gives it

to him. Afterward I see it growing where he planted it, in a place where

the grass had been cleared off and the dirt levelled. But neither George

nor me ever spoke of it to each other again."

The moon rose higher, possibly drawing water from the sea, pixies from

their dells and certainly more confidences from Simms Bell, the friend

of a friend.

"There come a time, not long afterward," he went on, "when I was able to

do a good turn for George Ringo. George had made a little pile of money

in beeves and he was up in Denver, and he showed up when I saw him,

wearing deer-skin vests, yellow shoes, clothes like the awnings in front

of drug stores, and his hair dyed so blue that it looked black in the

dark. He wrote me to come up there, quick--that he needed me, and to

bring the best outfit of clothes I had. I had 'em on when I got the

letter, so I left on the next train. George was--"

Bell stopped for half a minute, listening intently.

"I thought I heard a team coming down the road," he explained. "George

was at a summer resort on a lake near Denver and was putting on as many

airs as he knew how. He had rented a little two-room cottage, and had a

Chihauhau dog and a hammock and eight different kinds of walking sticks.

"'Simms,' he says to me, 'there's a widow woman here that's pestering

the soul out of me with her intentions. I can't get out of her way. It

ain't that she ain't handsome and agreeable, in a sort of style, but her

attentions is serious, and I ain't ready for to marry nobody and settle

down. I can't go to no festivity nor sit on the hotel piazza or mix in

any of the society round-ups, but what she cuts me out of the herd and

puts her daily brand on me. I like this here place,' goes on George,

'and I'm making a hit here in the most censorious circles, so I don't

want to have to run away from it. So I sent for you.'

"'What do you want me to do?' I asks George.

"'Why,' says he, 'I want you to head her off. I want you to cut me out.

I want you to come to the rescue. Suppose you seen a wildcat about for

to eat me, what would you do?'

"'Go for it,' says I.

"'Correct,' says George. 'Then go for this Mrs. De Clinton the same.'

"'How am I to do it?' I asks. 'By force and awfulness or in some gentler

and less lurid manner?'

"'Court her,' George says, 'get her off my trail. Feed her. Take her out

in boats. Hang around her and stick to her. Get her mashed on you if you

can. Some women are pretty big fools. Who knows but what she might take

a fancy to you.'

"'Had you ever thought,' I asks, 'of repressing your fatal fascinations

in her presence; of squeezing a harsh note in the melody of your siren

voice, of veiling your beauty--in other words, of giving her the bounce

yourself?'

"George sees no essence of sarcasm in my remark. He twists his moustache

and looks at the points of his shoes.

"'Well, Simms,' he said, 'you know how I am about the ladies. I can't

hurt none of their feelings. I'm, by nature, polite and esteemful of

their intents and purposes. This Mrs. De Clinton don't appear to be the

suitable sort for me. Besides, I ain't a marrying man by all means.'

"'All right,' said I, 'I'll do the best I can in the case.'

"So I bought a new outfit of clothes and a book on etiquette and made

a dead set for Mrs. De Clinton. She was a fine-looking woman, cheerful

and gay. At first, I almost had to hobble her to keep her from loping

around at George's heels; but finally I got her so she seemed glad to go

riding with me and sailing on the lake; and she seemed real hurt on the

mornings when I forgot to send her a bunch of flowers. Still, I didn't

like the way she looked at George, sometimes, out of the corner of her

eye. George was having a fine time now, going with the whole bunch just

as he pleased. Yes'm," continued Bell, "she certainly was a fine-looking

woman at that time. She's changed some since, as you might have noticed

at the supper table."

"What!" I exclaimed.

"I married Mrs. De Clinton," went on Bell. "One evening while we were

up at the lake. When I told George about it, he opened his mouth and I

thought he was going to break our traditions and say something grateful,

but he swallowed it back.

"'All right,' says he, playing with his dog. 'I hope you won't have too

much trouble. Myself, I'm not never going to marry.'

"That was three years ago," said Bell. "We came here to live. For a year

we got along medium fine. And then everything changed. For two years

I've been having something that rhymes first-class with my name. You

heard the row upstairs this evening? That was a merry welcome compared

to the usual average. She's tired of me and of this little town life and

she rages all day, like a panther in a cage. I stood it until two weeks

ago and then I had to send out The Call. I located George in Sacramento.

He started the day he got my wire."

Mrs. Bell came out of the house swiftly toward us. Some strong

excitement or anxiety seemed to possess her, but she smiled a faint

hostess smile, and tried to keep her voice calm.

"The dew is falling," she said, "and it's growing rather late. Wouldn't

you gentlemen rather come into the house?"

Bell took some cigars from his pocket and answered: "It's most too fine

a night to turn in yet. I think Mr. Ames and I will walk out along the

road a mile or so and have another smoke. I want to talk with him about

some goods that I want to buy."

"Up the road or down the road?" asked Mrs. Bell.

"Down," said Bell.

I thought she breathed a sigh of relief.

When we had gone a hundred yards and the house became concealed by

trees, Bell guided me into the thick grove that lined the road and back

through them toward the house again. We stopped within twenty yards of

the house, concealed by the dark shadows. I wondered at this maneuver.

And then I heard in the distance coming down the road beyond the house,

the regular hoofbeats of a team of horses. Bell held his watch in a ray

of moonlight.

"On time, within a minute," he said. "That's George's way."

The team slowed up as it drew near the house and stopped in a patch of

black shadows. We saw the figure of a woman carrying a heavy valise

move swiftly from the other side of the house, and hurry to the waiting

vehicle. Then it rolled away briskly in the direction from which it had

come.

I looked at Bell inquiringly, I suppose. I certainly asked him no

question.

"She's running away with George," said Bell, simply. "He's kept me

posted about the progress of the scheme all along. She'll get a divorce

in six months and then George will marry her. He never helps anybody

halfway. It's all arranged between them."

I began to wonder what friendship was, after all.

When we went into the house, Bell began to talk easily on other

subjects; and I took his cue. By and by the big chance to buy out the

business in Mountain City came back to my mind and I began to urge it

upon him. Now that he was free, it would be easier for him to make the

move; and he was sure of a splendid bargain.

Bell was silent for some minutes, but when I looked at him I fancied

that he was thinking of something else--that he was not considering the

project.

"Why, no, Mr. Ames," he said, after a while, "I can't make that deal.

I'm awful thankful to you, though, for telling me about it. But I've got

to stay here. I can't go to Mountain City."

"Why?" I asked.

"Missis Bell," he replied, "won't live in Mountain City, She hates the

place and wouldn't go there. I've got to keep right on here in

Saltillo."

"Mrs. Bell!" I exclaimed, too puzzled to conjecture what he meant.

"I ought to explain," said Bell. "I know George and I know Mrs. Bell.

He's impatient in his ways. He can't stand things that fret him, long,

like I can. Six months, I give them--six months of married life, and

there'll be another disunion. Mrs. Bell will come back to me. There's no

other place for her to go. I've got to stay here and wait. At the end of

six months, I'll have to grab a satchel and catch the first train. For

George will be sending out The Call."

[Illustration: "See Tom and the dog." (cartoon from _The Rolling

Stone_)]

A DINNER AT ---- [3]

[Footnote 3: See advertising column, "Where to Dine Well,"

in the daily newspapers.]

[The story referred to in this skit appears in "The Trimmed

Lamp" under the same title--"The Badge of Policeman O'Roon."]

The Adventures of an Author With His Own Hero

All that day--in fact from the moment of his creation--Van Sweller had

conducted himself fairly well in my eyes. Of course I had had to make

many concessions; but in return he had been no less considerate. Once

or twice we had had sharp, brief contentions over certain points of

behavior; but, prevailingly, give and take had been our rule.

His morning toilet provoked our first tilt. Van Sweller went about it

confidently.

"The usual thing, I suppose, old chap," he said, with a smile and a

yawn. "I ring for a b. and s., and then I have my tub. I splash a good

deal in the water, of course. You are aware that there are two ways in

which I can receive Tommy Carmichael when he looks in to have a chat

about polo. I can talk to him through the bathroom door, or I can be

picking at a grilled bone which my man has brought in. Which would you

prefer?"

I smiled with diabolic satisfaction at his coming discomfiture.

"Neither," I said. "You will make your appearance on the scene when a

gentleman should--after you are fully dressed, which indubitably private

function shall take place behind closed doors. And I will feel indebted

to you if, after you do appear, your deportment and manners are such

that it will not be necessary to inform the public, in order to appease

its apprehension, that you have taken a bath."

Van Sweller slightly elevated his brows.

"Oh, very well," he said, a trifle piqued. "I rather imagine it concerns

you more than it does me. Cut the 'tub' by all means, if you think best.

But it has been the usual thing, you know."

This was my victory; but after Van Sweller emerged from his apartments

in the "Beaujolie" I was vanquished in a dozen small but well-contested

skirmishes. I allowed him a cigar; but routed him on the question of

naming its brand. But he worsted me when I objected to giving him a

"coat unmistakably English in its cut." I allowed him to "stroll down

Broadway," and even permitted "passers by" (God knows there's nowhere

to pass but by) to "turn their heads and gaze with evident admiration

at his erect figure." I demeaned myself, and, as a barber, gave him a

"smooth, dark face with its keen, frank eye, and firm jaw."

Later on he looked in at the club and saw Freddy Vavasour, polo team

captain, dawdling over grilled bone No. 1.

"Dear old boy," began Van Sweller; but in an instant I had seized him

by the collar and dragged him aside with the scantiest courtesy.

"For heaven's sake talk like a man," I said, sternly. "Do you think it

is manly to use those mushy and inane forms of address? That man is

neither dear nor old nor a boy."

To my surprise Van Sweller turned upon me a look of frank pleasure.

"I am glad to hear you say that," he said, heartily. "I used those

words because I have been forced to say them so often. They really are

contemptible. Thanks for correcting me, dear old boy."

Still I must admit that Van Sweller's conduct in the park that morning

was almost without flaw. The courage, the dash, the modesty, the skill,

and fidelity that he displayed atoned for everything.

This is the way the story runs. Van Sweller has been a gentleman member

of the "Rugged Riders," the company that made a war with a foreign

country famous. Among his comrades was Lawrence O'Roon, a man whom Van

Sweller liked. A strange thing--and a hazardous one in fiction--was that

Van Sweller and O'Roon resembled each other mightily in face, form, and

general appearance. After the war Van Sweller pulled wires, and O'Roon

was made a mounted policeman.

Now, one night in New York there are commemorations and libations by old

comrades, and in the morning, Mounted Policeman O'Roon, unused to potent

liquids--another premise hazardous in fiction--finds the earth bucking

and bounding like a bronco, with no stirrup into which he may insert

foot and save his honor and his badge.

_Noblesse oblige?_ Surely. So out along the driveways and bridle paths

trots Hudson Van Sweller in the uniform of his incapacitated comrade, as

like unto him as one French pea is unto a _petit pois_.

It is, of course, jolly larks for Van Sweller, who has wealth and

social position enough for him to masquerade safely even as a police

commissioner doing his duty, if he wished to do so. But society, not

given to scanning the countenances of mounted policemen, sees nothing

unusual in the officer on the beat.

And then comes the runaway.

That is a fine scene--the swaying victoria, the impetuous, daft horses

plunging through the line of scattering vehicles, the driver stupidly

holding his broken reins, and the ivory-white face of Amy Ffolliott, as

she clings desperately with each slender hand. Fear has come and gone:

it has left her expression pensive and just a little pleading, for life

is not so bitter.

And then the clatter and swoop of Mounted Policeman Van Sweller! Oh, it

was--but the story has not yet been printed. When it is you shall learn

bow he sent his bay like a bullet after the imperilled victoria. A

Crichton, a Croesus, and a Centaur in one, he hurls the invincible

combination into the chase.

When the story is printed you will admire the breathless scene where Van

Sweller checks the headlong team. And then he looks into Amy Ffolliott's

eyes and sees two things--the possibilities of a happiness he has long

sought, and a nascent promise of it. He is unknown to her; but he stands

in her sight illuminated by the hero's potent glory, she his and he hers

by all the golden, fond, unreasonable laws of love and light literature.

Ay, that is a rich moment. And it will stir you to find Van Sweller

in that fruitful nick of time thinking of his comrade O'Roon, who is

cursing his gyrating bed and incapable legs in an unsteady room in a

West Side hotel while Van Sweller holds his badge and his honor.

Van Sweller hears Miss Ffolliott's voice thrillingly asking the name of

her preserver. If Hudson Van Sweller, in policeman's uniform, has saved

the life of palpitating beauty in the park--where is Mounted Policeman

O'Roon, in whose territory the deed is done? How quickly by a word can

the hero reveal himself, thus discarding his masquerade of ineligibility

and doubling the romance! But there is his friend!

Van Sweller touches his cap. "It's nothing, Miss," he says, sturdily;

"that's what we are paid for--to do our duty." And away he rides. But

the story does not end there.

As I have said, Van Sweller carried off the park scene to my decided

satisfaction. Even to me he was a hero when he foreswore, for the sake

of his friend, the romantic promise of his adventure. It was later

in the day, amongst the more exacting conventions that encompass the

society hero, when we had our liveliest disagreement. At noon he went to

O'Roon's room and found him far enough recovered to return to his post,

which he at once did.

At about six o'clock in the afternoon Van Sweller fingered his watch,

and flashed at me a brief look full of such shrewd cunning that I

suspected him at once.

"Time to dress for dinner, old man," he said, with exaggerated

carelessness.

"Very well," I answered, without giving him a clew to my suspicions; "I

will go with you to your rooms and see that you do the thing properly.

I suppose that every author must be a valet to his own hero."

He affected cheerful acceptance of my somewhat officious proposal to

accompany him. I could see that he was annoyed by it, and that fact

fastened deeper in my mind the conviction that he was meditating some

act of treachery.

When he had reached his apartments he said to me, with a too patronizing

air: "There are, as you perhaps know, quite a number of little

distinguishing touches to be had out of the dressing process. Some

writers rely almost wholly upon them. I suppose that I am to ring for

my man, and that he is to enter noiselessly, with an expressionless

countenance."

"He may enter," I said, with decision, "and only enter. Valets do not

usually enter a room shouting college songs or with St. Vitus's dance

in their faces; so the contrary may be assumed without fatuous or

gratuitous asseveration."

"I must ask you to pardon me," continued Van Sweller, gracefully, "for

annoying you with questions, but some of your methods are a little new

to me. Shall I don a full-dress suit with an immaculate white tie--or

is there another tradition to be upset?"

"You will wear," I replied, "evening dress, such as a gentleman wears.

If it is full, your tailor should be responsible for its bagginess.

And I will leave it to whatever erudition you are supposed to possess

whether a white tie is rendered any whiter by being immaculate. And I

will leave it to the consciences of you and your man whether a tie that

is not white, and therefore not immaculate, could possibly form any

part of a gentleman's evening dress. If not, then the perfect tie is

included and understood in the term 'dress,' and its expressed addition

predicates either a redundancy of speech or the spectacle of a man

wearing two ties at once."

With this mild but deserved rebuke I left Van Sweller in his

dressing-room, and waited for him in his library.

About an hour later his valet came out, and I heard him telephone for

an electric cab. Then out came Van Sweller, smiling, but with that sly,

secretive design in his eye that was puzzling me.

"I believe," he said easily, as he smoothed a glove, "that I will drop

in at ---- [4] for dinner."

[Footnote 4: See advertising column, "Where to Dine Well,"

in the daily newspapers.]

I sprang up, angrily, at his words. This, then, was the paltry trick he

had been scheming to play upon me. I faced him with a look so grim that

even his patrician poise was flustered.

"You will never do so," I exclaimed, "with my permission. What kind of a

return is this," I continued, hotly, "for the favors I have granted you?

I gave you a 'Van' to your name when I might have called you 'Perkins'

or 'Simpson.' I have humbled myself so far as to brag of your polo

ponies, your automobiles, and the iron muscles that you acquired when

you were stroke-oar of your 'varsity eight,' or 'eleven,' whichever it

is. I created you for the hero of this story; and I will not submit to

having you queer it. I have tried to make you a typical young New York

gentleman of the highest social station and breeding. You have no reason

to complain of my treatment to you. Amy Ffolliott, the girl you are to

win, is a prize for any man to be thankful for, and cannot be equalled

for beauty--provided the story is illustrated by the right artist. I do

not understand why you should try to spoil everything. I had thought you

were a gentleman."

"What it is you are objecting to, old man?" asked Van Sweller, in a

surprised tone.

"To your dining at ---- [5]," I answered. "The pleasure would be

yours, no doubt, but the responsibility would fall upon me. You intend

deliberately to make me out a tout for a restaurant. Where you dine

to-night has not the slightest connection with the thread of our story.

You know very well that the plot requires that you be in front of the

Alhambra Opera House at 11:30 where you are to rescue Miss Ffolliott a

second time as the fire engine crashes into her cab. Until that time

your movements are immaterial to the reader. Why can't you dine out

of sight somewhere, as many a hero does, instead of insisting upon an

inapposite and vulgar exhibition of yourself?"

[Footnote 5: See advertising column, "Where to Dine Well,"

in the daily newspapers.]

"My dear fellow," said Van Sweller, politely, but with a stubborn

tightening of his lips, "I'm sorry it doesn't please you, but there's

no help for it. Even a character in a story has rights that an author

cannot ignore. The hero of a story of New York social life must dine

at ---- [6] at least once during its action."

[Footnote 6: See advertising column, "Where to Dine Well,"

in the daily newspapers.]

"'Must,'" I echoed, disdainfully; "why 'must'? Who demands it?"

"The magazine editors," answered Van Sweller, giving me a glance of

significant warning.

"But why?" I persisted.

"To please subscribers around Kankakee, Ill.," said Van Sweller, without

hesitation.

"How do you know these things?" I inquired, with sudden suspicion. "You

never came into existence until this morning. You are only a character

in fiction, anyway. I, myself, created you. How is it possible for you

to know anything?"

"Pardon me for referring to it," said Van Sweller, with a sympathetic

smile, "but I have been the hero of hundreds of stories of this kind."

I felt a slow flush creeping into my face.

"I thought . . ." I stammered; "I was hoping . . . that is . . . Oh,

well, of course an absolutely original conception in fiction is

impossible in these days."

"Metropolitan types," continued Van Sweller, kindly, "do not offer a

hold for much originality. I've sauntered through every story in pretty

much the same way. Now and then the women writers have made me cut some

rather strange capers, for a gentleman; but the men generally pass me

along from one to another without much change. But never yet, in any

story, have I failed to dine at ---- [7]."

[Footnote 7: See advertising column, "Where to Dine Well,"

in the daily newspapers.]

"You will fail this time," I said, emphatically.

"Perhaps so," admitted Van Sweller, looking out of the window into the

street below, "but if so it will be for the first time. The authors all

send me there. I fancy that many of them would have liked to accompany

me, but for the little matter of the expense."

"I say I will be touting for no restaurant," I repeated, loudly. "You

are subject to my will, and I declare that you shall not appear of

record this evening until the time arrives for you to rescue Miss

Ffolliott again. If the reading public cannot conceive that you

have dined during that interval at some one of the thousands of

establishments provided for that purpose that do not receive literary

advertisement it may suppose, for aught I care, that you have gone

fasting."

"Thank you," said Van Sweller, rather coolly, "you are hardly courteous.

But take care! it is at your own risk that you attempt to disregard a

fundamental principle in metropolitan fiction--one that is dear alike to

author and reader. I shall, of course attend to my duty when it comes

time to rescue your heroine; but I warn you that it will be your loss if

you fail to send me to-night to dine at ---- [8]."

[Footnote 8: See advertising column, "Where to Dine Well,"

in the daily newspapers.]

"I will take the consequences if there are to be any," I replied. "I am

not yet come to be sandwich man for an eating-house."

I walked over to a table where I had left my cane and gloves. I heard

the whirr of the alarm in the cab below and I turned quickly. Van

Sweller was gone.

I rushed down the stairs and out to the curb. An empty hansom was just

passing. I hailed the driver excitedly.

"See that auto cab halfway down the block?" I shouted. "Follow it. Don't

lose sight of it for an instant, and I will give you two dollars!"

If I only had been one of the characters in my story instead of myself I

could easily have offered $10 or $25 or even $100. But $2 was all I felt

justified in expending, with fiction at its present rates.

The cab driver, instead of lashing his animal into a foam, proceeded at

a deliberate trot that suggested a by-the-hour arrangement.

But I suspected Van Sweller's design; and when we lost sight of his cab

I ordered my driver to proceed at once to ----. [9]

[Footnote 9: See advertising column, "Where to Dine Well,"

in the daily newspapers.]

I found Van Sweller at a table under a palm, just glancing over the

menu, with a hopeful waiter hovering at his elbow.

"Come with me," I said, inexorably. "You will not give me the slip

again. Under my eye you shall remain until 11:30."

Van Sweller countermanded the order for his dinner, and arose to

accompany me. He could scarcely do less. A fictitious character is but

poorly equipped for resisting a hungry but live author who comes to drag

him forth from a restaurant. All he said was: "You were just in time;

but I think you are making a mistake. You cannot afford to ignore the

wishes of the great reading public."

I took Van Sweller to my own rooms--to my room. He had never seen

anything like it before.

"Sit on that trunk," I said to him, "while I observe whether the

landlady is stalking us. If she is not, I will get things at a

delicatessen store below, and cook something for you in a pan over the

gas jet. It will not be so bad. Of course nothing of this will appear

in the story."

"Jove! old man!" said Van Sweller, looking about him with interest,

"this is a jolly little closet you live in! Where the devil do you

sleep?--Oh, that pulls down! And I say--what is this under the corner of

the carpet?--Oh, a frying pan! I see--clever idea! Fancy cooking over

the gas! What larks it will be!"

"Think of anything you could eat?" I asked; "try a chop, or what?"

"Anything," said Van Sweller, enthusiastically, "except a grilled bone."

Two weeks afterward the postman brought me a large, fat envelope. I

opened it, and took out something that I had seen before, and this

typewritten letter from a magazine that encourages society fiction:

Your short story, "The Badge of Policeman O'Roon," is herewith

returned.

We are sorry that it has been unfavorably passed upon; but it

seems to lack in some of the essential requirements of our

publication.

The story is splendidly constructed; its style is strong and

inimitable, and its action and character-drawing deserve

the highest praise. As a story _per se_ it has merit beyond

anything that we have read for some time. But, as we have said,

it fails to come up to some of the standards we have set.

Could you not re-write the story, and inject into it the social

atmosphere, and return it to us for further consideration? It

is suggested to you that you have the hero, Van Sweller, drop

in for luncheon or dinner once or twice at ---- [10] or at the

---- [11] which will be in line with the changes desired.

Very truly yours

THE EDITORS.

[Footnote 10: See advertising column, "Where to Dine Well,"

in the daily newspapers.]

[Footnote 11: See advertising column, "Where to Dine Well,"

in the daily newspapers.]

[Illustration: "See him do it." (cartoon from _The Rolling

Stone_)]

SOUND AND FURY

[O. Henry wrote this for _Ainslee's Magazine_, where it

appeared in March, 1903.]

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA

Mr. PENNE . . . . . . An Author

Miss LORE . . . . . . An Amanuensis

SCENE--Workroom of Mr. Penne's popular novel factory.

MR. PENNE--Good morning, Miss Lore. Glad to see you so prompt. We

should finish that June installment for the _Epoch_ to-day. Leverett is

crowding me for it. Are you quite ready? We will resume where we left

off yesterday. (Dictates.) "Kate, with a sigh, rose from his knees,

and--"

MISS LORE--Excuse me; you mean "rose from her knees," instead of "his,"

don't you?

MR. PENNE--Er--no--"his," if you please. It is the love scene in the

garden. (Dictates.) "Rose from his knees where, blushing with youth's

bewitching coyness, she had rested for a moment after Cortland had

declared his love. The hour was one of supreme and tender joy. When

Kate--scene that Cortland never--"

MISS LORE--Excuse me; but wouldn't it be more grammatical to say "when

Kate SAW," instead of "seen"?

MR. PENNE--The context will explain. (Dictates.) "When Kate--scene that

Cortland never forgot--came tripping across the lawn it seemed to him

the fairest sight that earth had ever offered to his gaze."

Miss LORE--Oh!

MR. PENNE (dictates)--"Kate had abandoned herself to the joy of her

new-found love so completely, that no shadow of her former grief was

cast upon it. Cortland, with his arm firmly entwined about her waist,

knew nothing of her sighs--"

MISS LORE--Goodness! If he couldn't tell her size with his arm around--

MR. PENNE (frowning)--"Of her sighs and tears of the previous night."

MISS LORE--Oh!

MR. PENNE (dictates)--"To Cortland the chief charm of this girl was her

look of innocence and unworldiness. Never had nun--"

MISS LORE--How about changing that to "never had any?"

MR. PENNE (emphatically)--"Never had nun in cloistered cell a face more

sweet and pure."

MISS LORE--Oh!

MR. PENNE (dictates)--"But now Kate must hasten back to the house lest

her absence be discovered. After a fond farewell she turned and sped

lightly away. Cortland's gaze followed her. He watched her rise--"

MISS LORE--Excuse me, Mr. Penne; but how could he watch her eyes while

her back was turned toward him?

MR. PENNE (with extreme politeness)--Possibly you would gather my

meaning more intelligently if you would wait for the conclusion of the

sentence. (Dictates.) "Watched her rise as gracefully as a fawn as she

mounted the eastern terrace."

MISS LORE--Oh!

Mr. PENNE (dictates)--"And yet Cortland's position was so far above that

of this rustic maiden that he dreaded to consider the social upheaval

that would ensue should he marry her. In no uncertain tones the

traditional voices of his caste and world cried out loudly to him to let

her go. What should follow--"

MISS LORE (looking up with a start)--I'm sure I can't say, Mr. Penne.

Unless (with a giggle) you would want to add "Gallegher."

Mr. PENNE (coldly)--Pardon me. I was not seeking to impose upon you the

task of a collaborator. Kindly consider the question a part of the text.

MISS LORE--Oh!

Mr. PENNE (dictates)--"On one side was love and Kate; on the other side

his heritage of social position and family pride. Would love win? Love,

that the poets tell us will last forever! (Perceives that Miss Lore

looks fatigued, and looks at his watch.) That's a good long stretch.

Perhaps we'd better knock off a bit."

(Miss Lore does not reply.)

Mr. PENNE--I said, Miss Lore, we've been at it quite a long time--

wouldn't you like to knock off for a while?

MISS LORE--Oh! Were you addressing me before? I put what you said down.

I thought it belonged in the story. It seemed to fit in all right. Oh,

no; I'm not tired.

MR. PENNE--Very well, then, we will continue. (Dictates.) "In spite of

these qualms and doubts, Cortland was a happy man. That night at the

club he silently toasted Kate's bright eyes in a bumper of the rarest

vintage. Afterward he set out for a stroll with, as Kate on--"

MISS LORE--Excuse me, Mr. Penne, for venturing a suggestion; but don't

you think you might state that in a less coarse manner?

MR. PENNE (astounded)--Wh-wh--I'm afraid I fail to understand you.

MISS LORE--His condition. Why not say he was "full" or "intoxicated"? It

would sound much more elegant than the way you express it.

MR. PENNE (still darkly wandering)--Will you kindly point out, Miss

Lore, where I have intimated that Cortland was "full," if you prefer

that word?

MISS LORE (calmly consulting her stenographic notes)--It is right here,

word for word. (Reads.) "Afterward he set out for a stroll with a skate

on."

MR. PENNE (with peculiar emphasis)--Ah! And now will you kindly take

down the expurgated phrase? (Dictates.) "Afterward he set out for a

stroll with, as Kate on one occasion had fancifully told him, her spirit

leaning upon his arm."

MISS LORE--Oh!

Mr. PENNE (dictates)--Chapter thirty-four. Heading--"What Kate Found

in the Garden." "That fragrant summer morning brought gracious tasks

to all. The bees were at the honeysuckle blossoms on the porch. Kate,

singing a little song, was training the riotous branches of her favorite

woodbine. The sun, himself, had rows--"

MISS LORE--Shall I say "had risen"?

MR. PENNE (very slowly and with desperate deliberation)--"The--sun--

himself--had--rows--of--blushing--pinks--and--bollyhocks--and--

hyacinths--waiting--that--he--might--dry--their--dew-drenched--cups."

MISS LORE--Oh!

MR. PENNE (dictates)--"The earliest trolley, scattering the birds from

its pathway like some marauding cat, brought Cortland over from Oldport.

He had forgotten his fair--"

MISS LORE--Hm! Wonder how he got the conductor to--

Mr. PENNE (very loudly)--"Forgotten his fair and roseate visions of the

night in the practical light of the sober morn."

MISS LORE--Oh!

MR. PENNE (dictates)--"He greeted her with his usual smile and manner.

'See the waves,' he cried, pointing to the heaving waters of the sea,

'ever wooing and returning to the rockbound shore.'" "'Ready to break,'

Kate said, with--"

MISS LORE--My! One evening he has his arm around her, and the next

morning he's ready to break her head! Just like a man!

MR. PENNE (with suspicious calmness)--There are times, Miss Lore, when

a man becomes so far exasperated that even a woman--But suppose we

finish the sentence. (Dictates.) "'Ready to break,' Kate said, with

the thrilling look of a soul-awakened woman, 'into foam and spray,

destroying themselves upon the shore they love so well."

MISS LORE--Oh!

MR. PENNE (dictates)--"Cortland, in Kate's presence heard faintly the

voice of caution. Thirty years had not cooled his ardor. It was in

his power to bestow great gifts upon this girl. He still retained the

beliefs that he had at twenty." (To Miss Lore, wearily) I think that

will be enough for the present.

MISS LORE (wisely)--Well, if he had the twenty that he believed he had,

it might buy her a rather nice one.

MR. PENNE (faintly)--The last sentence was my own. We will discontinue

for the day, Miss Lore.

MISS LORE--Shall I come again to-morrow?

MR. PENNE (helpless under the spell)--If you will be so good.

(Exit Miss Lore.)

ASBESTOS CURTAIN

[Illustrations: Two letters of reference taken by young Will

Porter from North Carolina to Texas]

TICTOCQ

[These two farcical stories about Tictocq appeared in

_The Rolling Stone_. They are reprinted here with all of

their local references because, written hurriedly and for

neighborly reading, they nevertheless have an interest

for the admirer of O. Henry. They were written in 1894.]

THE GREAT FRENCH DETECTIVE, IN AUSTIN

A Successful Political Intrigue

CHAPTER I

It is not generally known that Tictocq, the famous French detective, was

in Austin last week. He registered at the Avenue Hotel under an assumed

name, and his quiet and reserved manners singled him out at once for one

not to be singled out.

No one knows why he came to Austin, but to one or two he vouchsafed the

information that his mission was an important one from the French

Government.

One report is that the French Minister of State has discovered an old

statute among the laws of the empire, resulting from a treaty between

the Emperor Charlemagne and Governor Roberts which expressly provides

for the north gate of the Capital grounds being kept open, but this is

merely a conjecture.

Last Wednesday afternoon a well-dressed gentleman knocked at the door of

Tictocq's room in the hotel.

The detective opened the door.

"Monsieur Tictocq, I believe," said the gentleman.

"You will see on the register that I sign my name Q. X. Jones," said

Tictocq, "and gentlemen would understand that I wish to be known as

such. If you do not like being referred to as no gentleman, I will give

you satisfaction any time after July 1st, and fight Steve O'Donnell,

John McDonald, and Ignatius Donnelly in the meantime if you desire."

"I do not mind it in the least," said the gentleman. "In fact, I am

accustomed to it. I am Chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee,

Platform No. 2, and I have a friend in trouble. I knew you were Tictocq

from your resemblance to yourself."

"Entrez vous," said the detective.

The gentleman entered and was handed a chair.

"I am a man of few words," said Tictoq. "I will help your friend if

possible. Our countries are great friends. We have given you Lafayette

and French fried potatoes. You have given us California champagne

and--taken back Ward McAllister. State your case."

"I will be very brief," said the visitor. "In room No. 76 in this hotel

is stopping a prominent Populist Candidate. He is alone. Last night some

one stole his socks. They cannot be found. If they are not recovered,

his party will attribute their loss to the Democracy. They will make

great capital of the burglary, although I am sure it was not a political

move at all. The socks must be recovered. You are the only man that can

do it."

Tictocq bowed.

"Am I to have carte blanche to question every person connected with the

hotel?"

"The proprietor has already been spoken to. Everything and everybody is

at your service."

Tictocq consulted his watch.

"Come to this room to-morrow afternoon at 6 o'clock with the landlord,

the Populist Candidate, and any other witnesses elected from both

parties, and I will return the socks."

"Bien, Monsieur; schlafen sie wohl."

"Au revoir."

The Chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee, Platform No.2, bowed

courteously and withdrew.

* * * * * *

Tictocq sent for the bell boy.

"Did you go to room 76 last night?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who was there?"

"An old hayseed what come on the 7:25."

"What did he want?"

"The bouncer."

"What for?"

"To put the light out."

"Did you take anything while in the room?"

"No, he didn't ask me."

"What is your name?"

"Jim."

"You can go."